Controversial new religions [Second edition] 9780199315307, 0199315302, 9780199315314, 0199315310

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 6
Contributors......Page 10
Introduction......Page 16
PART ONE: Western Religious Traditions......Page 26
1 A Family for the Twenty-first Century......Page 28
2 The Unification Church......Page 53
3 The Controversies about Peoples Temple and Jonestown......Page 68
4 The Branch Davidians......Page 82
5 Charismatic Controversies in the Jesus People, Calvary Chapel, and Vineyard Movements......Page 96
6 Kabbalah Centre: marketing and meaning......Page 116
7 Controversial Afro-American Muslim Organizations......Page 129
PART TWO: Asian and Asian-Inspired Traditions......Page 144
8 The Earth School: the movement of spiritual inner awareness......Page 146
9 Contested Genealogies and Cross-Cultural Dynamics in the Hare Krishna Movement......Page 159
10 Transcendental Meditation, the Art of Living Foundation, and Public Relations: from psychedelic romanticismto science and schism......Page 174
11 Controversy, Cultural Influence, and the Osho/Rajneesh Movement......Page 191
12 Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum Incident: a critical introduction......Page 210
13 Falun Gong: a narrative of pending apocalypse, shape-shifting aliens, and relentless persecutio n......Page 256
PART THREE: Western Esoteric and New Age Groups......Page 270
14 Scientology: the making of a religion......Page 272
15 The Church Universal and Triumphant: controversy, change, and continuance......Page 285
16 The Order of the Solar Temple......Page 301
17 New Age Spiritualities......Page 317
18 Contemporary Paganism......Page 330
19 Popularity of—and Controversy in—Contemporary Shamanism......Page 346
PART FOUR: Other Groups and Movements......Page 362
20 “Come on up, and I will show thee”: heaven’s gate as a postmodern group......Page 364
21 “Those who came from the sky”: ancient astronauts and creationismin the raëlian religion......Page 383
22 Wolf Age Pagans......Page 398
23 Carnal, Chthonian, Complicated: the matter of modern satanism......Page 414
Index......Page 450

Citation preview

Controversial New Religions

Controversial New Religions

z

S ECOND EDITI O N

Edited by JAMES R. LEWIS JESPER Aa. PETERSEN

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1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

© Oxford University Press 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Controversial new religions / edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen. — 2nd Edition. p. cm. ISBN 978–0–19–931531–4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Cults. I. Lewis, James R., editor of compilation. II. Petersen, Jesper Aagaard, editor of compilation. BP603.C66 2014 200.9'04—dc23 2013049363

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Contents

Contributors 

ix

Introduction 

1

PART ONE: Western Religious Traditions   1. A Family for the Twenty-first Century—James Chancellor 13 2. The Unification Church—Sarah M. Lewis 38 3. The Controversies about Peoples Temple and Jonestown —Rebecca Moore 53 4. The Branch Davidians—Eugene V. Gallagher 67 5. Charismatic Controversies in the Jesus People, Calvary Chapel, and Vineyard Movements—Jane Skjoldli 81 6. Kabbalah Centre: Marketing and Meaning—Jody Myers 101 7. Controversial Afro-American Muslim Organizations —Göran Larsson 114

PART TWO: Asian and Asian-Inspired Traditions 8. The Earth School: The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness —James R. Lewis 131

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Contents

9. Contested Genealogies and Cross-Cultural Dynamics in the Hare Krishna Movement—Malcolm Haddon 144 10. Transcendental Meditation, the Art of Living Foundation, and Public Relations: From Psychedelic Romanticism to Science and Schism—Inga B. Tøllefsen 159 11. Controversy, Cultural Influence, and the Osho/Rajneesh Movement—Marion S. Goldman 176 12. Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum Incident: A Critical Introduction —Martin Repp 195 13. Falun Gong: A Narrative of Pending Apocalypse, Shape-Shifting Aliens, and Relentless Persecution—Helen Farley 241

PART THREE: Western Esoteric and New Age Groups   14. Scientology: The Making of a Religion—Kjersti Hellesøy 257 15. The Church Universal and Triumphant: Controversy, Change, and Continuance—Jocelyn H. DeHaas 270 16. The Order of the Solar Temple—Henrik Bogdan 286 17. New Age Spiritualities—Siv Ellen Kraft 302 18. Contemporary Paganism—Manon Hedenborg-White 315 19. Popularity of—and Controversy in—Contemporary Shamanism —Anne Kalvig 331

PART FOUR: Other Groups and Movements   20. “Come on up, and I will show thee”: Heaven’s Gate as a Postmodern Group—George D. Chryssides 349 21. “Those who came from the sky”: Ancient Astronauts and Creationism in the Raëlian Religion—Erik A. W. Östling 368

Contents vii

22. Wolf Age Pagans—Mattias Gardell 383 23. Carnal, Chthonian, Complicated: The Matter of Modern Satanism—Jesper A a. Petersen 399 Index 

435

Contributors

Henrik Bogdan is Associate Professor in History of Religions at the University of Gothenburg. His main areas of research are Western esotericism, New Religious Movements, and Freemasonry. He is the author of Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation (2007); and co-editor of several works, including Handbook of Freemasonry (2014) and Sexuality and New Religious Movements (2014). James D. Chancellor is retired W. O. Carver Professor of World Religions from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has a PhD from Duke University in History of Religion and is the author of Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God (2000). George D. Chryssides was Head of Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, England, from 2001 to 2008, and is currently Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham. Recent publications include The A to Z of Jehovah’s Witnesses (2009); Heaven’s Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group (2011); Christians in the Twenty-First Century (with Margaret Z. Wilkins, 2011); and Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2012). He has co-edited (with Benjamin E. Zeller) The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements (2014); and is currently working on Jehovah’s Witnesses: Continuity and Change, to be published in 2014. Jocelyn H. DeHaas received her PhD from the University of New Mexico. She works at the University of New Mexico and Central New Mexico Community College teaching anthropology and religious studies. Dr. DeHaas has been studying the Church Universal and Triumphant since 1994. Helen Farley is a Senior Research Fellow with the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland and a Senior Lecturer (Digital Futures) at the Australian Digital Futures Institute at the University of Southern Queensland. She has taught and researched in world religions, meditative and esoteric traditions, religion and popular

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culture, and religion in virtual worlds. She was the convenor of the Alternative Expressions of the Numinous Conference Series and the editor of the journal Khthónios. Eugene V. Gallagher is the Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College. He is the author of Expectation and Experience: Explaining Religious Conversion (1990); The New Religious Movements Experience in America (2004); and co-author of Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (1995). With W. Michael Ashcraft he is the co-editor of the five-volume Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in the United States (2006). He is a co-General Editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Associate Editor of Teaching Theology and Religion. Mattias Gardell is Nathan Söderblom Professor of Comparative Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden. His numerous publications include In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (1996); Rasrisk (1998, 2003); Gods of the Blood: White Separatism and the Pagan Revival (2003); and Bin Laden i våra hjärtan: Globaliseringen och framväxten av politisk islam (Bin Ladin in our hearts: Globalization and the rise of political Islam) (2005). The latter study is currently being translated into English, Spanish, Arabic, and Norwegian. Marion S. Goldman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of Oregon and Scholar in Residence at the Portland Center for Public Humanities at Portland State University. Her 2012 book The American Soul Rush focuses on the growth and spread of alternative spirituality in the United States and the ways that Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, helped shape the spiritual marketplace. She has written extensively about the Rajneesh/Osho Movement in her book Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult (1999) and in numerous academic and popular articles. Malcolm Haddon is a sessional lecturer in anthropology at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University. He is also a senior adviser to the New South Wales Government on multicultural affairs, specializing in issues relating to religion and violent extremism. His forthcoming book Transcending Culture with the Hare Krishnas: Conversion, Translation, Revelation will be published in 2014. Manon Hedenborg-White is a PhD candidate in History of Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her dissertation deals with the social construction of gender in contemporary occultism. She has written and spoken on a number of topics pertaining to gender and sexuality in modern Western esotericism and Paganism.

Contributors xi

Kjersti Hellesøy is currently a graduate student at the University of Tromsø, currently researching independent Scientology. She holds degrees in Religious Studies and in Russian language and literature. She has a special interest in New Religious Movements, religion and violence, Christianity and Islam. She is co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Scientology (2015). Anne Kalvig is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Stavanger, Norway. She has published the book Spiritual Health: Views of Life among Alternative Practitioners (2013, in Norwegian) and various articles and chapters on themes within the field of alternative spirituality, such as alternative therapy, folk medicine, crop circles, spiritual tourism, spiritism, religion and media, popular culture, and death. Siv Ellen Kraft is professor in the History of Religions, University of Tromsø, Norway. Kraft has written extensively on Theosophy, New Age spiritualities, and religious revival among the Sami, including a number of articles, four edited books and four monographs. Recent books include ­Religion i pressen (with Cora Alexa Døving, 2013) and Hva er nyreligiøsitet (2011). Göran Larsson holds a PhD in Religious Studies. He has published extensively on Islam and Muslims in Europe and on Islamic theology and media and communication studies. His most recent publication is Muslims and the New Media: Historical and Contemporary Debates (2011). James R. Lewis is professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tromsø and a highly published scholar in the field of New Religious Movements. His titles have won four book awards. Lewis currently co-edits three book series and edits two academic journals. Recent publications include The Children of Jesus and Mary (2010, co-authored with Nicolas Levine); Violence and New Religious Movements (2011); and Cults: A Reference and Guide (2012). Sarah Lewis is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She teaches courses in New Religious Movements and has written on the Unification Church and The Urantia Book. Rebecca Moore is distinguished professor of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, with a PhD in Religious Studies from Marquette University (1996). Dr. Moore specializes in American religions, focusing on New Religious Movements. Her most recent book is Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple (2009). She co-manages the website Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple (http://jonestown.sdsu.edu), a digital archive of relevant primary source documents.

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Jody Myers is a professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Northridge. Her research interest is on modern and contemporary religious thought, with a focus on Orthodox Jews. She is author of Seeking Zion: Modernity and Messianic Activism in the Writings of Tsevi Hirsch ­Kalischer (2003); Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Centre in America (2007); and numerous articles in academic journals and collective volumes. Erik A. W. Östling works as a study administrator for the history of religions at the department for ethnology, history of religions and gender studies at Stockholm University. He has been studying the history of religions, social anthropology and philosophy at the university. Jesper Aa. Petersen is Associate Professor at the Programme for Teacher Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. He is the editor of several anthologies, most recently The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity (2012, with Per Faxneld), and has published numerous articles on contemporary Satanism and occulture in scholarly journals, anthologies, encyclopedias, and textbooks. His current fields of interest are the academization of Religious Education, secularity and nonreligion, and transgressive art and religion. Martin Repp is lecturer for Religious Studies at Heidelberg University and the editor of the journal Japanese Religions. He had been professor for comparative Religious Studies at Ryukoku University (Kyoto) and lectured at Kyoto, Doshisha, and Kwansei Gakuin universities. He did extensive research on Aum Shinrikyo, including field studies and interviews with members between 1995 and 2009. The other fields of his research are Chinese and Japanese Pure Land Buddhism as well as forms and contents of intra- and interreligious communication. Jane Skjoldli is a PhD student in the study of religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. Skjoldli wrote her master’s thesis on material aspects of the veneration of Pope John Paul II in Rome and has also conducted some research on charismatic Christianity in Norway. Theoretical interests include cognitive approaches to religion, material and visual religion. Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen is currently a graduate student at the University of Tromsø. Her research interests include New Religious Movements (especially Indian-oriented movements), the New Age, religion and gender, and religion and nature. She has published a number of articles and book reviews in scholarly academic journals, and is co-editor of the forthcoming collection, Handbook of Nordic New Religions (2014).

Controversial New Religions

Introduction James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen

at the time of the Jonestown suicides in 1978, the field of new religious movements (NRMs) was little more than a relatively small specialization within the sociology of religion. There were a few non-sociologists active in the field back then (e.g., Gordon Melton, Timothy Miller, and Robert Ellwood), but it took a long time for the religious studies academy to accept NRMs as part of religious studies. It was not until after a series of high-profile tragedies in the 1990s—the Branch Davidian siege, the Solar Temple murder-suicides, the Aum Shinrikyo incident, and the Heaven’s Gate suicides—that the religious studies mainstream truly embraced new religions as a legitimate field of study. Although the field of NRMs has achieved the status of a recognized specialty, it is a very odd field of specialization—one that lacks an adequate internal logic for determining which phenomena fall within its purview. Until the development of NRM subspecialties, such as Pagan Studies and studies of Western Esotericism, the core of the field consisted of studies of the most controversial new religions plus analyses of the “cult” controversy. In many ways, NRM studies remains a residual category. Although the designation “new religions” implies that all kinds of emergent religions are part of this field, in practice NRM scholars have tended to avoid studying movements already claimed by other scholarly specialties. Thus, to cite a few examples, Pentecostalism has been left to church historians and cargo cults to anthropologists (Lewis 2004). In effect, NRM studies is an ad hoc grab bag composed of groups no other scholarly specialty wants to bother with. Although NRM studies has been accepted as a legitimate part of the ­academy, in many ways the field remains segregated from the larger discipline of religious studies—despite the fact that it is easy to make a case for the importance of researching new religions. As the new religions scholar

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introduction

Susan Palmer once noted in a magazine interview, “If you’re interested in studying religion . . . NRMs are a great place to start. Their history is really short, they don’t have that many members, their leader is usually still alive, and you can see the evolution of their rituals and their doctrines. It’s a bit like dissecting amoebas instead of zebras” (quoted in Lester 2002). The point here is an obvious one, namely, that the study of current new religions can deepen our understanding of more established religions. On the other hand, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, religious studies scholars were deeply interested in the question of the origins of religion. Thus, it seems natural to consider whether these earlier formulations might be used to provide insights into the emergence of contemporary new religions— though no one seems to have undertaken this task. The field of NRMs has been significantly shaped by the controversies surrounding a set of highly diverse religious organizations. One could reasonably argue that one of the few common factors uniting them is the fact that they are controversial. Even the relevant controversies, however, are quite diverse. Members of Aum Shinrikyo, for instance, dramatically attacked people outside of the group, precipitating a sharp response from Japanese society. In contrast, the Branch Davidians—who had coexisted quite harmoniously with their neighbors for many years—became embroiled in controversy only after being assaulted by an agency of the US government. And in yet another, completely different scenario, Heaven’s Gate made international headlines after imploding in a group suicide. Despite many substantive differences, the more controversial new religions have been perceived as constituting parts of a unitary phenomenon and have been understood in terms of a shared stereotype that has been applied to many such religions. These extrinsic factors have led to an unusual situation in which, without any sense of stepping beyond the bounds of their expertise, NRM scholars can study a fairly orthodox (theologically) Christian group like The Family, a Hindu group like the Hare Krishna movement, a neo-traditional Chinese group like Falun Gong, and so on—when in other circumstances only academicians with specialized backgrounds in theology, Hinduism, Chinese religion, and so forth would attempt to study these movements. Another result of the so-called “cult” controversy is that NRM scholarship has tended to cluster around the most controversial groups, particularly the ones that have attracted the most news media coverage. Thus, a comparatively tiny movement like The Family has been the subject of numerous articles and several books. In contrast, a significantly larger but much less controversial new religion like Eckankar has never been the subject of even a single academic journal article. The aim of the present collection is to bring together a

Introduction

3

series of original studies on the groups that have generated the most academic attention. Each of the contributors to this volume provides an overview of each organization or movement. This collection is not, however, simply a series of expanded encyclopedia entries. Rather, each author has crafted an analysis that makes an original contribution to the study of her or his chosen group. Chapters have been grouped into four subsections according to the larger religious traditions to which they belong: the Western (Abrahamic) tradition, Asian and Asian-­ inspired, esoteric and New Age, and other kinds of groups and movements.

Part I : Western Religious Traditions In “A Family for the Twenty-first Century,” James Chancellor presents an overview of the Children of God (COG), now known as The Family. COG emerged out of the Jesus People movement as a blend of traditional evangelical Christianity and the 1960s counterculture. COG quickly became the most controversial group on the religious landscape. It is historically important in the history of the anti-cult movement: the first anti-cult organization was FREECOG (Free the Children of God), and deprogramming developed in response to COG. Chancellor outlines the history of the movement, its major theological landmarks, and gives particular attention to recent changes in organizational structure and strategy. Sarah Lewis’s piece outlines the origins, history, and beliefs of the Unification Church. It also highlights the ways in which the Unification Church has sought to fulfill the role that it believes it holds in God’s plan for humanity and presents a summary of the various activities in which the movement has been involved and the numerous organizations that have been founded by Moon, partly to fulfill the theology of the group and partly as an attempt to make the movement more appealing and acceptable to outsiders. Additionally, Lewis summarizes some of the controversies that have surrounded the movement. She concludes with an assessment of recent changes in the Unification Church following the death of Sun Myung Moon in September 2012. Of the many issues and questions that emerge from the study of Peoples Temple, several appear again and again: What was the level of violence in the organization? Was Jonestown a concentration camp? Was Jim Jones, the group’s leader, insane? Were the deaths in Jonestown suicide or murder? Were the deaths in Jonestown the result of a conspiracy? What are the lessons of Jonestown? In “The Controversies about Peoples Temple and Jonestown,” ­Rebecca Moore treats these issues of controversy and provides information about the group’s beliefs, leadership, and history. It also

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introduction

examines each question in detail, presenting a variety of viewpoints by describing the positive elements that built the movement as well as the negative factors that contributed to the final tragedy at Jonestown. The Branch Davidians only became known to the general public when agents of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms staged a massive but flawed raid on their home and church outside of Waco, Texas, on February 28, 1993. News coverage of the group during the ensuing fifty-one day siege quickly made the Branch Davidians conform to the stereotypical image of a “destructive cult.” That characterization, however, obscured the complex religious history that produced the Branch Davidians and the full dimensions of their religious life. In “The Branch Davidians,” Eugene Gallagher provides an introduction to the Branch Davidians and to the tradition they inherited from their roots in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Despite their critique of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, the Davidians retained that movement’s focus on accurately forecasting and preparing for the imminent return of Christ at the Last Judgment. The Jesus People movement’s influence on Christian music and charismatic practices has been profound. Alongside the interdenominational musical reformation came changes in how the charismata—God’s spiritual gifts to Christians—were performed and celebrated in church services. Embraced at first as bodily manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence, controversies arose over time concerning what should count as charismata and how central these practices ought to be in church services. In “Charismatic Controversies in the Jesus People, Calvary Chapel, and Vineyard Movements,” Jane Skjoldli explores three such controversies, how they were handled by church leaders and how they would come to shape the Calvary Chapel’s and the Vineyard Christian Fellowship’s denominational identities. In the “Kabbalah Centre: Marketing and Meaning,” Jody Myers discusses the history and practices of the Kabbalah Centre, a new religious movement with a mission to spread the teachings of Kabbalah to all humanity. Defining itself as an international spiritual community with doctrines compatible with all world religions, this rabbi-led organization is antagonistic toward organized Judaism from which it borrows many teachings. The Kabbalah Centre’s proselytizing, and the commercial mode in which it operates its centers and provides access to meditation and other rituals, are discussed as having roots in its theology. These features, as well as its extensive marketing efforts, explain the Kabbalah Centre’s controversial reputation and its continuous growth and loss of followers. Although its core teachers and most devoted followers are expatriate Israelis, Kabbalah Centre followers are mostly drawn from non-Jewish religious backgrounds and the unchurched.

Introduction

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The aim of Göran Larsson’s “Controversial Afro-American Muslim Organizations” is to provide an overview of the history and theology of the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and the Five Percenters. These three Muslim Afro-American movements are analyzed and discussed in relation to the historical and social cultural context of North America. An overarching aim of the chapter is to discuss to what extent and why the three movements can be analyzed as controversial religions. To do so it is also necessary to discuss with whom the movements are controversial.

Part II : Asian and Asian-Inspired Traditions The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) is a contemporary religious group which represents a blend of New Age, Metaphysical Christianity, and the Sant Mat (Radhasoami) tradition. Like the closely related Eckankar organization, MSIA has been accused of plagiarizing the Radhasoami movement. In “The Earth School: The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness,” James R. Lewis summarizes MSIA beliefs and practices, and then analyzes the charge of plagiarism. Finally, the chapter discusses how MSIA, and the New Age subculture more generally, conceptualizes the spiritual life—indeed, the whole of life—in terms of metaphors drawn from the sphere of formal education. Researchers of new religions in the West have followed the fortunes of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) throughout its varied career: bearing witness to its countercultural genesis; watching it come of age through an awkward and occasionally blemished adolescence as an exotic and stigmatized cult; sharing in its now middle-aged existence as a survivor of those more turbulent and expectant times—a movement coming to terms with its own maturity and its own identity after four decades of trial, error, and tribulation. In “Contested Genealogies and Cross-Cultural Dynamics in the Hare Krishna Movement,” Malcolm Haddon provides a brief overview of ISKCON’s history as witnessed by its observers. Highlighting the complex cross-cultural aspects of ISKCON’s development, this chapter also identifies some of the key “cultural” problems that ISKCON poses for the study of new religious “imports.” In “Transcendental Meditation, the Art of Living Foundation, and Public Relations: From Psychedelic Romanticism to Science and Schism,” Inga B. Tøllefsen addresses controversies in Transcendental Meditation (TM) and its history in the West (and especially in North America); chronicling periods of less or more mainstreaming on the TM part—moving from world peace and psychedelics in the Beatles era to science as a way of attracting the “Average Joanna” practitioner in

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introduction

later years. Further, as schisms in NRMs tend to be controversial, this chapter also provides a short overview of the Robin Carlsen case and, notably, that of the Art of Living Foundation (AoL). AoL has become a global NRM in a few years. In addition to exploring the likelihood of schisms within AoL, this chapter assesses controversial (and non-controversial) interactions between AoL, TM, and the mass media. The formal membership of the NRM around Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/ Osho has declined since its peak in the late 1970s but has become a pervasive cultural force in the United States and throughout the world. The Osho movement, as it is now known, has been nimble in transforming its identity through selective reinterpretations of movement history, reorganizing leadership, reframing its doctrine, and redefining its goals. In “Controversy, Cultural Influence, and the Osho/Rajneesh Movement,” Marion S. Goldman examines the Osho movement, its history, and doctrines in order to better understand the more general process of movement transformation. Martin Repp’s “Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum Incident: A Critical Introduction” presents systematic overviews of Aum Shinrikyo, its historical development, and the significant body of scholarship that has been carried out on the movement. Analyses of Aum Shinrikyo—or Aleph as it is now called—must necessarily come to grips with the task of explaining the 1995 poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. This and other criminal acts became known as the Aum incident. Repp’s discussion is built around the question: How did a group that began life as a peaceful yoga group transform into an apocalyptic doomsday religion, capable of acts of terrorism? Few people outside of China fully understand the full scope of Falun Gong. Practitioners adhere to a complex theology replete with shape-shifting aliens, multiple planes of existence, and warnings of an impending apocalypse brought about by extreme moral degradation which only a lucky few will survive. In this worldview karma plays a pivotal role, but not the abstract karma of Buddhism, but rather a tangible sticky black substance which can be at least partially removed by practicing five physically demanding yet meditative exercises. Since 1999, Falun Gong practitioners have been brutally persecuted by the Chinese Government, both parties making claims and counterclaims about evildoing, clever conspiracies, and other such injustices. Amid a torrid propaganda war of considerable vehemence from both sides, the truth can be difficult to discern. In “Falun Gong: A Narrative of Pending Apocalypse, Shape-shifting Aliens, and Relentless Persecution,” Helen Farley briefly examines both sources of controversy within Falun Gong while providing an overview of the beliefs, practices, and history of the movement.

Introduction

7

Part III : Western Esoteric and New Age Groups One of the most controversial—if not the most controversial—contemporary new religions is the Church of Scientology. In “Scientology: The Making of a Religion,” Kjersti Hellesøy provides an overview of this group. Beginning with a short biography of the founder, she then examines the transformation of L. Ron Hubbard’s original decentralized therapy movement into the highly structured church organization. Then in successive sections, she systematically summarizes Scientology’s beliefs, practices, complex bureaucratic organization, and many controversies. In “The Church Universal and Triumphant: Controversy, Change, and Continuance,” Jocelyn H. DeHaas examines the Church Universal and ­Triumphant, an eclectic, esoteric church developed in the mid-1900s, which gained notoriety in the 1980s and 1990s as being the next potential dangerous religious movement especially after the church’s leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, claimed a cataclysm would occur and church members went underground into bomb shelters. Despite this unsuccessful prediction, conflicts with its neighbors, and lawsuits against it, the church has persisted. Elizabeth Clare Prophet passed away in 2009 without naming a successor, now the challenge of the church is to continue without new prophecies. The Order of the Solar Temple caught the attention of the public in October 1994, when fifty-three members of the order in Switzerland and Québec were murdered or committed suicide. These tragic events were later followed by two group suicides, and the Solar Temple quickly became one of the most notorious and discussed “cults.” Henrik Bogdan’s “The Order of the Solar Temple” surveys the most important scholarly theories concerning the violence of the Solar Temple. It also addresses the broader discussion of sects and violence using the Solar Temple as a case study. New Age spiritualities can be linked to neither mass suicides nor terror, and take as their premise many of the basic ideas of late modern Western culture—individual autonomy, women’s liberation, and the importance of selfrealization. Why, then, so much fuss, ridicule, and contempt? In an attempt to shed light upon such puzzles, in “New Age Spiritualities,” Siv Ellen Kraft discusses the controversial status of New Age spiritualities in scholarly circles, in Christian contexts, and in secular news discourse. What Linda Woodhead has referred to as the “inadequacy approach” appears to be common to the first and last of these perspectives, with New Age placed outside or near the borders of “religion,” as not quite or properly religious. In contrast, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have chosen a bad—if not demonic—religious approach,

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introduction

with extreme versions positioning New Age under the leadership of Lucifer himself. In “Contemporary Paganism,” Manon Hedenborg-White provides an introduction to the history, beliefs, and practices of contemporary Paganism and some of its main denominations. In the mid-twentieth century, Gerald Gardner (1884–1964) published several books that allegedly detailed the ­secrets of an ancient form of pagan witchcraft that celebrated nature and sexuality. This religion, which came to be called Wicca, blossomed and played a significant role in inspiring the contemporary Pagan movement. Rather than viewing the phenomenon as a pre-Christian survival or as something that emerged fully formed in the mid-twentieth century, Paganism is located firmly in modernity by an outline of some of the cultural trends that inspired it. The chapter also presents some of the controversial issues with which Pagans grapple, as well as Pagan attitudes to gender and sexuality. Neo-shamans in a medialized setting are the focus of Anne Kalvig’s “Popularity of—and Controversy in—Contemporary Shamanism.” With the Norwegian, celebrity shaman and medium Gro-Helen Tørum and other practitioners from media and her own fieldwork as examples, Kavlig focuses on the case of female shamans in particular. They often appear as mediums and ­clairvoyants, in addition to shamans, and demonstrate various ways of relating to or employing the “ethnicity” of shamanism as a way of widening their scope of action. Their staging of themselves as shamans or “users of shamanistic techniques” gives clues to understand the interplays of popular religion and spirituality, tradition, media, and gender.

Part IV : Other Groups and Movements George D. Chryssides’s “‘Come on up, and I will show thee’: Heaven’s Gate as a Postmodern Group” examines the worldview of the Heaven’s Gate in terms of the concept of postmodernity. After the mass suicide of 1997, the group provoked controversy as an example of a “suicide cult” equivalent to the Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, and the Solar Temple. Through a closer look at the radical physicalistic interpretation of the Book of Revelation presented by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, Chryssides demonstrates that the actions undertaken make sense in light of the group’s worldview. ­Additionally, the group’s idiosyncratic use of science fiction and Christianity parallels the construction of meaning in a postmodern society. In “‘Those who came from the sky’: Ancient Astronauts and Creationism in the Raëlian Religion,” Erik A. W. Östling discusses the religious creation of the Frenchman Claude Vorilhon, nowadays know as his holiness Raël.

Introduction

9

Following an alleged encounter with an extraterrestrial in 1973 he founded the Raëlian religion. The main tenets of his religion are the notions that humankind is the creation of a group of extraterrestrial scientists; that bodily sensuality and sexuality is something positive; that immortality can be achieved through scientific means; and that if we prove ourselves worthy and rid our world of all destructive tendencies we will inherit the knowledge of our creators and become able to continue the creative cycle by creating life elsewhere in the cosmos. The chapter will also situate Raëlianism within the context of ancient astronaut theories. Pointing out that even countercultural religious movements like modern neo-Paganism have their fringe elements, in “Wolf Age Pagans” Mattias Gardell analyzes and describes the rise of racist Asatrú and other Norse-flavored Paganisms in the context of American white-power culture. Its rapid rise in popularity in the 1990s and their own identity construction processes provide a very different perspective on assumptions made by more mainstream Pagans regarding identity and affinity with past cultures. Jesper Aa. Petersen’s “Carnal, Chthonian, Complicated: The Matter of Modern Satanism” is an exploration of the many faces of Satanism today, with particular attention given to satanic discourse and practice found in the milieu of self-­ declared religious Satanism. The chapter begins with the establishment of a general analytical frame of reference, where the discursive strategies of appropriating and reinterpreting the satanic in different ways are discussed. This is followed by a historical and sociological sketch of the satanic milieu, including a description of sample groups that represent different constituents within modern Satanism. Finally, a systematic discussion of connecting themes anticipates some suggestions for future research.

Bibliography Lester, Toby. “Oh, Gods!” 2002. The Atlantic Monthly, 289. Lewis, James R. 2003. Legitimating New Religions. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers ­University Press. ———. 2004. The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. New York: Oxford University Press.

PART ONE

Western Religious Traditions

1

A Family for the Twenty-first Century James Chancellor

Introduction The jesus people movement began in the United States as a fusion of an evangelical Christian awakening and the youth counterculture of the 1960s. The Children of God (COG), now known as The Family International, was the most controversial group to arise out of this broader religious landscape. The call on young people to a life or radical separation from family and conventional society, the bitter denunciation of American values, and the confrontational style of the movement soon elicited considerable hostility from family members, government, and the media. David Brandt Berg, founding prophet of The Family, left the United States in 1972.1 He encouraged his followers to flee to more hospitable lands in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Within a few years, most of the disciples responded to this call. Those who remained went underground. COG virtually disappeared from the American landscape. Although there were always a few communities in the United States and Canada, in the late 1980s, the North American disciples began to return home in large numbers. The Family had gone through radical theological, organizational, and lifestyle changes. This small, North American countercultural movement had grown into a worldwide religious subculture of some 10,000 people. This chapter will outline the history of the movement, its major theological landmarks, and give particular attention to the substantive changes in The Family since the death of the founding Prophet in 1994.

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History of The Family The Children of God: The Formative Years The Family begins with David Brandt Berg (b. 1919). By 1944 Berg was in fulltime Christian service. He was ordained to the ministry in the Christian and Missionary Alliance and spent twenty years in and out of various religious positions. In the mid-1960s, Berg began to envision himself as a uniquely called and gifted missionary to the lost and confused youth of America. In 1966 he and his wife and four children took to the road as an itinerant singing and evangelistic team. He added several disciples along the way, and in early 1968 Father David and his extended “family” settled into Huntington Beach, California. He and his children began a strongly youth-oriented evangelistic ministry, and the first shot in the Jesus Revolution had been fired. Father David’s revolution was not only for Jesus. It was also against the “System,” the corrupt educational, political, economic, and religious structures of contemporary American society that were soon to be consumed by the wrath of God. Those young people who “received Jesus” were further challenged to “forsake all” by rejecting every tie to the evil System, commit full time as a disciple, and move in with Father David and his growing “family.” In April 1969, Father David took his band of young charges on the road again. A young woman named Karen Zerby (Maria) joined up. She soon became Father David’s secretary, and they began a sexual relationship. The community settled temporarily at a campground in the Laurentian Mountains in Canada. Here, Father David announced the foundation prophecy for the COG: “A Prophecy of God on the Old Church and the New Church.”2 God, in favor of his New Church, the COG, had rejected the old system church. Father David also announced to his inner circle that he was separating from his old wife and taking his young secretary, Maria, as his new wife. She gradually rose in status within the movement and eventually inherited the mantle of leadership upon Berg’s death. Soon the disciples were on the move again, living off the land. They survived on gifts from their families, funds brought into the community when new disciples joined, and “provisioning” most food and necessities by appeal to the public. By February 1970, they numbered nearly 200 and had settled on to a ranch in west Texas. During this phase, the basic patterns for COG life were established. The disciples settled into a routine of Bible memorization, Bible studies developed by Father David, provisioning, jobs to maintain community life, devotional and fellowship meetings, training in witnessing strategies, and witnessing



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ventures. They continued to grow, and soon they were dispersed. By the end of 1971, sixty-nine colonies were spread out across the United States and Canada with almost 1,500 disciples. The summer of 1971 marked the beginning of FREECOG, one of the original anti-cult organizations. FREECOG began a propaganda campaign accusing COG of kidnapping, drug use, and psychological terror by hypnotizing and “brainwashing” innocent young people. These and other attacks only exacerbated a fortress mentality that already laid heavy emphasis on the otherness of the outside world. In this formative period, Father David received two revelations that would begin a series of “revolutions” within The Family. In December 1970, he had a dream that led him to withdraw from personal contact with the disciples.3 He began to teach and guide them through his writing. From this point on, he channeled his charisma and authority through his correspondence, known as MO Letters. In the spring of 1972, Father David had a dream of mass destruction in the United States. He urged his North American followers to flee as soon as ­possible and to begin the missionary task of reaching the world for Jesus. They heard the call, and by the end of 1972 colonies had been established in much of Western Europe and Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and India. With the migration out of North America, the overtly confrontational, antiestablishment component of the COG message began to soften. This change in posture was consistent with an enlarged vision for a worldwide missionary enterprise. The explosive growth, rapid spread, and youth and inexperience of most disciples left the organization with serious leadership problems. In 1973, Father David attempted to slow the growth of the movement and develop more capable leadership. He also introduced a new strategy for getting out the message, the wide distribution of COG literature. This activity was termed “litnessing.”4 Since the literature was exchanged for “a small donation,” finances improved dramatically. Music was always a central aspect of The Family vision. Disciples have written hundreds of songs of protest, praise, and proclamation. By 1974 several COG bands had achieved wide public acceptance and popularity. In addition, numerous “Poor Boy Clubs” that featured dancing, recorded and live music, and dramatic skits were opened around the world. By the mid-1970s, Berg had come to a new understanding of his own role in human history. He was not only God’s unique End Time Prophet but also King of God’s New Nation. Some top-level leadership began to chafe at this new status. By contrast, he was concerned about the arrogance and harshness

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of many leaders, and their lack of concern for the welfare of the ordinary disciples. In the “New Revolution” of early 1975, Father David established a new “Chain of Cooperation” in an attempt to address these problems.5 Most of the leadership under the Chain of Cooperation came from the old guard, and the reform lacked effect. The Chain also further distanced Father David from the vast majority of young followers, and life for most of the ordinary disciples grew more difficult. In the early 1970s Father David began the most sensational aspect of his “Revolution,” a complete transformation of sexual ethos. Shortly after taking Maria as a second wife, Berg began having sexual encounters with other female disciples in his inner circle. By the early 1970s, the top level of leadership was also experimenting with multiple partners. These activities were unknown to the vast majority of disciples, whose sexual mores continued to reflect their evangelical Christian roots. In March 1974 Father David and Maria relocated to the resort of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. He gathered a small group of attractive female disciples to begin an experiment in a new witnessing strategy, which he termed “Flirty Fishing,” later shortened to “FFing.” The female disciples would use the full range of their feminine charms, including sexual intercourse, to witness for Jesus and to make supportive friends for the movement. Few field disciples were aware of the extent of this new strategy. In 1976 Mo Letters came out that described the FFing of Maria and others in graphic detail, set the model for the larger community, and encouraged the disciples to begin this new “ministry.”6 Acceptance was by no means universal. Many disciples had strong reservations, and a significant number left the movement. Flirty Fishing marked some significant changes. The confrontational approach was now gone forever, replaced by a strong emphasis on the love and compassion of Jesus. Additionally, the target audience had shifted almost completely away from “hippies and drop outs.” These and other substantive shifts in Family orientation brought serious internal conflicts.

The Family of Love: Degeneration and Regeneration By the end of 1977, a number of leaders began to question Father David’s status as God’s End Time Prophet. They also raised doubts regarding some of his teachings, particularly the radical shift in sexual mores. And Father David became more aware that many leaders were abusively authoritarian and were living in luxury by means of exorbitant “taxes” on field colonies. In January 1978, Father David issued “Re-organization Nationalization Revolution”7 (RNR),



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the most significant event in the history of the COG. The organization itself was dismantled and some 300 leaders were dismissed and either rejected or ordered into the streets as ordinary disciples. The movement was renamed “The Family of Love.” All those loyal to the King were welcome to remain directly faithful and responsible to the Prophet. There was considerable loss of membership in 1978, even with the birth of some 600 children. The Jonestown tragedy brought fears of anti-cult hysteria, and the disciples were urged to go underground. Many “went mobile,” traveling about in campers or caravans as itinerant missionaries, often not identifying themselves as COG. Their only direct connection to the movement was the MO Letters. Although the disciples continued to litness and witness, Flirty Fishing increased dramatically after the RNR. In some areas, it became the primary means of witness and financial support. In the mid-1970s, the sexual ethics of the COG grew increasingly liberal. The practice of multiple sexual partners (sharing) had filtered down from leadership to all of the field colonies. By 1978, Berg was strongly encouraging sexual experimentation, and he freed the disciples from any leadership constraints. Nudity within the homes, and sexual liaisons between members became common practice. Father David understood human sexuality as a beautiful, natural creation of God. In exploring how this principle might relate to children, he sent out Letters detailing his early childhood sexual experiences, and directives for adults to allow children the freedom to express their natural sexual inclinations. From 1978 to 1983, he and the entire Family were exploring the outer limits of sexual freedom. Most disciples were aware that sexual contact between adults and children was occurring in the Berg’s household.8 Some disciples interpreted some of the MO Letters as allowing for sexual interplay of adults with minors. It is not possible to determine the extent or degree of this activity, but it was occurring in Family homes around the globe. By the end of 1980, The Family of Love was growing again. Dispersed throughout the world in small homes, most disciples were isolated and somewhat adrift. In 1981, Father David ordered the disciples to begin weekly fellowship meetings with others in their area.9 A new hierarchical structure was established. Large homes, which functioned as national headquarters, were set up in each country. By the end of 1981, another significant transition overtook The Family. In 1981 there were 719 births. From this point on, children constituted the majority of members. The care, discipline, and education of children soon began to require an increasing portion of energy, time, and resources.

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The Family: Serving a Sexy God From 1982 to 1984, The Family reordered itself back into a tightly knit organization. Many disciples responded to Father David’s call to carry the message of Jesus to the “Third World.” By the end of 1982, 34% of the disciples were in Latin America and almost 40% in Asia. By 1982 children were a majority of full-time members. The Family responded in several ways. Children began to play an even greater role in outreach ministries. An increasing amount of attention was given to child rearing. Most significantly, The Family began to see the youth as the hope of the future, the disciples who would carry the movement and the message to The End. The recruitment of new disciples continued, but the numbers fell considerably. The total number of full-time members reached 10,000 in 1983 and hovered around that mark for the next ten years, despite averaging over 700 births per year. Many of the new disciples proved to be short term, and as the first wave of children began to mature, The Family began to lose more people than were joining through evangelism and recruitment. The Family began to face a new and troubling phenomenon, teenagers. Several “school homes” were established for the education and discipleship of the growing number of teens. In 1983, Father David received disturbing reports of misconduct at one of the teen homes. He responded with strict guidelines for the youth, and high expectations for their personal conduct.10 By the early 1980s Flirty Fishing was widespread and becoming increasingly central to the life of many communities. “FFing” was originally envisioned and theological justified as a witnessing strategy, it was not a useful tool to recruit new disciples. However, it did serve another vital purpose. FFing had become a primary source of financial support and political protection. Many female disciples established long-term relationships with wealthy or influential men. These men often provided resources, help in immigration, and protection against social and political repression. In some areas of Asia, Europe, and Latin America, female disciples went to work for escort services, providing sex for a fixed fee.11 The issues of sexuality and their distinctive sexual practices were playing an ever-increasing role in Family life. In the spring of 1980, Father David sent out “The Devil Hates Sex!—But God Loves It!”12 In his own “revolutionary” style, he made very clear that the disciples served a “sexy God” and that God loved sex and wanted his Children to enjoy it fully. But as nudity and open sexuality became more and more common, real problems were surfacing. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) began spreading through The Family. It was common practice to have a considerable amount of sexual sharing at



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Area Fellowships, facilitating the spread of STDs from home to home. In March 1983 Father David issued “Ban the Bomb!”13 He halted sexual activities at area fellowships and limited all sexual relationships to persons residing within the same home. Of course, he exempted himself from this restriction. This is the first point at which The Family began to face the negative spiritual and social consequences of unrestricted sexual freedom. In December 1984 Maria prohibited new members (Babes) from any sexual encounters during their first six months.14 The pendulum of sexual freedom had reached its apex and began a slow swing back toward a somewhat more conventional sexual ethos. Also in 1984, Maria commissioned certain musically talented homes to produce a series of audiocassettes for the general public. The tapes were an immense success and soon became a central focus of outreach. They were also an additional source of financial support. As The Family reconfigured toward a more tightly structured organization of large communal homes, other problems developed. In 1985, World Services received reports of harsh and oppressive leadership practices in Japan and other areas. They responded with a flood of literature reasserting the hierarchical nature of the leadership structure but also urging local and area leaders to carry out their duties as servants, dealing with disciples under their care with love and understanding. The Family was evolving and maturing. Since birth control was strictly prohibited, almost all homes included a good number of children. Given their strong communal lifestyle, parents were becoming increasingly wary of inviting total strangers into their communities. Family homes began requiring a six months’ probationary period for prospective members. The probation period went a long way toward stabilizing community life and eliminating short-term disciples. In the late 1980s, a good number of former disciples began to return to the fold. Many were teenagers who were in need of spiritual direction and training. To meet this need, The Family established Teen Training Camps (TTC) in Mexico, South America, Europe, and Asia. While in the Teen Training Camps, several teenage girls reported inappropriate and uninvited sexual advances by adult males. When Maria became fully aware of extent of this problem, she responded. In August 1986, she prohibited sexual contact between adults and minors. However, The Prophet had repeatedly affirmed sex to be enjoyed as fully as possible. Stepping away from such a total affirmation proved difficult. A short time later, adult sexual contact with minors was made an excommunicable offense, but as late as 1989 the problem still existed in some locations.

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The Family continued to place further limits on sexual expression. By the end of the decade, sexual activity among children or young teens was increasingly discouraged. Soon a policy was established to forbid sexual intercourse between children under age 16. As might be expected, the policy was not uniformly kept, and sanctions were not severe. However, adult sexual contact with a minor is now a most serious breach of Family rules and results in automatic excommunication. By 1987, Flirty Fishing was central to the life of most communities, but it had become problematic. Many homes were overly dependent on it, primarily by means of influential supporters developed through long-term relationships. However, the AIDS epidemic was the primary reason for halting the practice. In the fall of 1987, a policy memo banned sexual contact with outsiders, except “close and well-known” friends who had long-term relationships with Family women. Throughout the late 1980s, The Family continued to evolve. Education emerged as a top priority, with large school homes established in all areas. Teaching the youth became a primary Family concern. By the end of 1989 there were almost 100 school homes, serving over 3,000 children. As the teens continued to gather in larger numbers, disruptive and destructive conduct increased. The Family responded with “Victor Programs,” which were periods of intense discipline, work, and spiritual oversight. In some places these programs were harsh and abusive. Many, if not most, of the first wave of teens rebelled and left the movement. After a few years, Maria found certain aspects of the program far too harsh, and she ended it. She apologized and ordered the key adult leadership to apologize personally to teens they had mistreated.15 By the late 1980s, India was the most fruitful mission field, with over 2,000 disciples. Most were North Americans or Europeans, on tourist visas or in the country illegally. In 1988, the Indian government clamped down, and many were forced to leave. Confident that The End was near and persecution would greatly increase, Father David ordered the disciples in India to go home. By the end of 1989, over 800 disciples had returned from the East. The return of these battle-hardened missionaries pointed up again the disparity in the “standard” of Family life. In an effort to create an End Time Army ready for the final tumult, World Services suspended all homes in North America and Europe until they could be reviewed and re-certified as legitimate Family communities. Many failed the test. A new category of membership was established, TRF Supporter (TSer). These were persons who wished to remain connected to The Family, but were unable or unwilling to maintain the high standard of



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disciple life.16 In 1989 almost 1,400 were “Tsed,” essentially kicked out. Regular disciples were prohibited from direct contact with them. However, they were encouraged to remain loyal to The Family vision and were viewed as partial members if they continued in their financial support. Many were TSed as family units, but there were a number of situations where spouses were separated, and in some cases parents were separated from their children. From 1989 to 1994, the total number of disciples remained at approximately 12,000, but the percentage of those on TS status increased from approximately 10% to 25%.17 After 1993, the attitude toward TSers softened considerably. Soon they were termed “Fellow Members,” they were encouraged to fellowship with Disciple Homes and take a much more active role in support of Family objectives. After 1989, The Family began to focus on newly opened mission fields in the former Soviet Union and Africa. Hundreds of disciples, mostly secondgeneration young people, relocated to eastern Europe and Africa, almost all as underground, unregistered missionaries.

The Family: Persecution and Maturation At the close of the 1980s, The Prophet was tired, ill, and aging. He essentially retired at the end of 1988. Maria assumed the role of spiritual leader and guide. Peter Amsterdam took over administrative control of The Family. This was never formalized or announced. Few disciples were conscious of the change, though all knew that Father David was grooming Maria, allowing her ever greater latitude and authority. In October 1994, David Brandt Berg passed away. Shortly after his death, Peter Amsterdam and Maria were married and established themselves as a leadership team overseeing all of Family life. However, Father David continued to speak regularly and guide The Family from the Spirit World. While various internal forces worked to constantly reconfigure the community, forces from the outside fostered a significant shift in the early 1990s. The disciples had always faced strong and often hostile opposition. They have been harassed, kidnapped, and assaulted by religious opponents and anti-cult activists. They have been intimidated, arrested, and imprisoned by law enforcement authorities. Virtually all opposition was interpreted as religious persecution. When persecution came, they suffered, sought the assistance of “friends,” and went underground or moved on to more receptive fields. But when their children became the target, attitudes changed quickly. Toward the end of the 1980s, persons within the anti-cult movement, supported by the testimonies of a number of ex-members, laid charges of child

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abuse and sexual molestation against Family communities in Europe, Australia, and South America. The various attempts to take away the children dramatically changed the way Family disciples related to the outside world. Father David instructed the disciples to stand and fight for their children. Disciples all over the world began active protests against the governments that were attacking their communities. Sometimes Family communities took preemptive measures, inviting in law enforcement and social services agencies to conduct investigations of the children. In addition, Family leadership opened their communities to legitimate scholarly inquiry, confident they had nothing to hide.18 But the movement had been forever altered by these experiences. The event that most rocked The Family came in 1993, in England. A wealthy widow, whose adult daughter had joined while on a religious quest in Nepal, filed suit in British High Court, seeking custody of the daughter’s infant son. The judge conducted a lengthy inquiry, not only into the actual circumstances of the child in question but also into Family history, ideology, and moral conduct. The anti-cult establishment became actively involved, and the case lasted almost three years. Throughout the process, Family leadership was required to come to terms with the past; to explain passages in their literature that did condone sexual contact with minors; to respond to the testimony of numerous former members who had been mistreated and abused. The closet doors were kicked open. And in the midst of the whole painful process, Father David died. In order to close out the case, Peter Amsterdam was required to write an open letter to the judge that admitted the policies and practices of The Family had, in some instances, been harmful. The letter identified Father David as a root cause of some of this destructive behavior. It was a painful, but necessary catharsis.19 Although finally admitting the extent of past abuse that characterized disciple life up to the last decade of the twentieth century, Family disciples have successfully defended themselves against all charges of current sexual misconduct with minors, or any form of child abuse or neglect. From 1989 to approximately 2004, over 600 children were removed from their homes and examined by court-appointed experts in numerous countries. These experts detected no abused children. Without question, there are numerous incidents of child sexual abuse in Family history. They have attempted to put these things behind them. To date, no adult has been found legally guilty of a crime. But attempts will surely continue to bring offending individuals and Family leadership to justice over this sad and bitter aspect of their past.



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Although the 1990s were a time of renewed “persecution” and a time of winnowing out the uncommitted, The Family began to mellow. Father David set himself and his followers against the Church, “the god damned, hypocritical, idol worshipping, churchianity of the System.”20 But in late 1991, he began to encourage disciples to visit and perhaps even fellowship with open-minded congregations. In general, this has not worked well. More significantly, he directed the disciples to send some of their many converts toward local churches for care and training in the Christian life.21 This proved to be a limited strategy, but is clear evidence of an attempt to lower tension with the outside. Attitudes toward members who left were always negative and strained. But by the late 1980s an increasing number of teens were leaving. And many parents wished to maintain a good relationship with these departing children. The Family has made an about face on this sensitive issue. It is now recognized that only a few of the children will remain committed. Efforts are made to prepare the others for life on the outside and parents are encouraged to keep the relationships strong and the lines of communication open. This softened attitude has extended to all former members. From 1994 on, The Family has committed to a “Ministry of Reconciliation.”22 Peter Amsterdam has taken the lead in attempting to reach out to ex-members around the world in an effort to heal old wounds and establish friendly relationships where possible. These attempts have met with some success, though small cadres of former members still remain hostile and aggressively opposed to The Family. This shift in attitude toward the outside is also evidenced in a transition in the approach to social ministries. Since the beginning, the disciples were concerned almost completely with the spiritual salvation of potential converts. But in 1992, Father David directed his followers to begin helping the poor and the helpless, “like Jesus did.”23 Almost immediately, disciples started ministries to prisons, street gangs, illegal aliens, unwed mothers, drug addicts, refugees in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and abused children all over the world. Social ministry has taken root very quickly and is now central to the life and practice of most disciples, particularly the second generation.

The Family: The Post-Prophet Era David Berg died in the fall of 1994. The transition of authority had been ongoing for a number of years, and his mantle fell easily on Maria and her consort, Peter Amsterdam. While the transition went quite smoothly, The Family changed dramatically in 1995. World Services implemented the “Charter of Rights and Responsibilities.” The Charter contained the movement’s basic beliefs and detailed the fundamental rights and responsibilities of the disciples,

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as well as the rules and guidelines for communal life. Queen Maria and King Peter retain overall and supreme authority, but day-to-day life became far more democratic. The disciples were strongly encouraged to live “according to their own faith” with a minimum of supervision and direction from a radically altered leadership structure. Smaller home size was mandated, and most significantly, disciples received the absolute right of mobility. Later, The Family moved toward a “Board Vision” in which the various aspects of communal life and ministry will be under the direction of a wide and popularly elected board of directors.24 The Love Charter greatly improved the life experience of most disciples and led to greater contentment and happiness. It went some way toward curbing the mass exodus of young people from the movement. But it was not without its problems. The Family struggled to find its way under the kinder and gentler approach to leadership. Toward the end of the 1990s, Maria and Peter were becoming increasingly concerned with the lax attitudes and low productivity of many disciples. In a takeoff on the Y2K phenomenon, they issued S2K—Shake Up Two Thousand.25 Discipline and community standards were reaffirmed, and those unwilling to conform were strongly encouraged to become Fellow Members, or leave the movement completely. This purge lasted for several years, and some 1,500 disciples were pushed out into the world.26 The quest was to create a leaner and more productive Army of the Lord, more prepared to carry out the mission, and to face the tumult of the End of Days. Two of the more significant changes of Family life since the death of Father David are in the areas of spiritual life and community vision. Interaction and communication with the Spirit World was a feature of Family life from the beginning of the movement. Disciples were open to the possibility of prophetic experiences and guidance from those who have gone on. But the vast majority of substantive communication came through Father David. Not long after his death, Maria opened up the channels in several significant ways. Father David continued to guide the community from the Spirit World by “speaking” prophetically through Peter Amsterdam and several other receptors in the central household. This quickly expanded, so that Jesus, Father David, the apostle Paul, and any number of other persons now regularly communicate directly with The Family. Much of the guiding vision and strategy comes directly from above, and the substantive portions of the Letters are direct utterances from the Spirit World, most often from Jesus. In conjunction with this shift, the disciples themselves were strongly encouraged to develop the prophetic gift within themselves. Most have. Direct revelations and prophecy are now normal features of disciple life, either in



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private experience or community prayer.27 The vast majority of disciples now look to prophecy to guide decision making in virtually all aspects of their lives. The shift seems to have created a greater sense of ownership in their various ministries, confidence, and a sense of shared vision. The disruptive potential for such openness to prophecy within a tightly structured community is obvious. To minimize this potential, Maria retained the role of “Wine Taster,” essentially holding the keys to the kingdom. All prophecy that might impact the broader community in any way is subject to her evaluation and validation.28 An equally significant shift has occurred in the conceptualization of the purpose of The Family. From the very beginning, witnessing for Jesus and the spiritual salvation of as many souls as possible before The End has been the essential task of Family life. To that end, Family disciples have been highly mobile, and generally not geared toward the spiritual development and care of converts. The development of follow-up literature, the involvement in social ministry, and the encouragement of converts toward outside churches represent the beginnings of a shift. But at the opening of the twenty-first century, a fundamental reorientation occurred. The “Activated Program” has been developed and implemented worldwide.29 It is not an option, but rather the new Family vision. Considerable resources have been poured into developing quality educational materials for new converts. And Family disciples are strongly encouraged to settle down in one place, focus their evangelistic efforts, and work at developing what are essentially congregations that will be directly related to local disciple homes, and look to those disciples as spiritual mentors, guides, pastors. Analyzing the motivations for significant shifts in movements like The Family is no easy task. Two factors seem to be at work here, both growing out of an apparent delay of the Second Coming of Jesus. To date, The Family claims to have led more than twenty-six million persons to pray the salvation prayer and receive Jesus as their personal savior. However, that is simply a number on a piece of paper. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the disciples have had little or no contact with these “converts.” For most of their history, The Family lived in high expectation of an immediate end to human history as we know it, and the singular task was to get as many people saved as possible. The care of souls was a low priority. It seems clear that the Activated Program represents the beginning stages of an accommodation to the possibility of a much longer than expected mission in this world. Beyond that, many of the disciples are beginning to age. And given their strong apocalyptic bent, most have made no provision at all for an extended life. That is changing. Family leadership is quite open in describing the Activated Program as the potential retirement package for faithful disciples.30

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It remains to be seen how well the “radical revolutionary COG” can sustain this shift toward more conventional religious life. There are real challenges, especially the degree to which outside members can participate in some of the distinctive aspects of the Family ethos. But, the Activated Program seems to be catching on, particularly in certain areas of Latin America and Asia, where the disciples have generally been more geographically stable. It seems clear that Queen Maria and King Peter are leading The Family on a journey from “cult” to “sect.”

Theology of The Family While The Family can be viewed and examined from many perspectives, it is essentially a religious movement grounded in a clearly articulated belief system. While The Family boasts an extraordinary range of educational, religious, cultural, ethnic, and national backgrounds, the disciples are guided and sustained by a common vision and a coherent set of theological commitments. This theological system has developed and evolved through the years, but is grounded on the twin rocks of biblical authority and the prophetic office of Father David. The Christian Bible was the sole source of religious authority at the beginning of the movement, and disciples remain deeply immersed in the sacred text. However, Father David adopted a position of “progressive revelation,” which keeps open the possibility of revision or change, and placed his writings on an equal footing with the Bible.31 An exhaustive analysis of Family doctrine is beyond the scope of this chapter.32 I will attempt to explore the core beliefs that are central to The Family experience. These core beliefs center on Jesus and human Salvation, Father David as God’s Prophet, the Spirit World, the End Times, the System, and the sexual ethic.

Jesus and Salvation Human salvation through faith in Jesus Christ as the only Savior is the cornerstone of Family theology. The disciples generally share an understanding of Jesus Christ that is consistent with Evangelical Protestant Christianity. Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for the sins of the world, rose from the grave, and is returning soon to this earth. All people are “lost” and without hope in this world. But, eternal salvation is available to all who will, in faith, simply repeat a short prayer inviting Jesus to come into his or her life as personal Savior. Once an individual repeats this prayer, that person is saved and has secured an eternal home in heaven with Jesus. “Witnessing,” or the attempt to get as many people as possible to pray this simple



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prayer, has been the central task of discipleship from the beginning. Paradoxically, Father David taught that in the end, all creation would be reconciled to God. But this universalism has set very lightly on the disciples and never dampened their evangelistic fire.

The Prophet In the early days, David Berg claimed no special status or office. However, as the movement developed, he came to a radically different self-understanding. By the end of 1970, Father David had emerged as God’s Prophet for the End Time. He quickly established his absolute authority over the disciples. His claims of divine appointment and absolute spiritual authority roughly coincided with his withdrawal from direct contact with the disciples. He channeled that authority through the MO Letters, affirming them as “new Scripture” that clarified or superseded the Bible, and was more likely to be of immediate value. At times, Father David’s claims to divine insight and authority seemed almost limitless.33 And though he consistently emphasized his own humanity and fallibility, he remained throughout his life (and beyond) as the divinely anointed leader and spiritual guide for the Children. He also claimed the title of King of God’s New Nation, with all the political authority and homage due their rightful King. After the necessity to win souls for Jesus, Father David’s claim as Prophet and King is the most consistent theme in Family life and literature. The full acceptance and affirmation of The Prophet’s role and status was a central component of the socialization process. Disciples could remain in The Family harboring “doubts and struggles” over some of his more extreme claims, some viewing him as both a prophet and “a weird old man.” But no open challenge to his position or authority was possible. Many of the disciples, particularly the females, developed an extraordinary emotional bond as well. If anything, Father David’s status seemed to be enhanced by his death. And though Maria and Peter assumed leadership of The Family as co-regents, Father David was perceived to sit at the very right hand of Jesus, in a much stronger position to lead and guide the Children. However, under a more recent reorientation, a more realistic assessment of David Berg’s strengths and weakness are now in vogue.

The Spirit World The work of Father David in heaven is consistent with long-established Family theology. Father David’s direct encounters with the Spirit World began in 1970,

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when the spirit of Abrahim, a fourteenth-century gypsy Christian, entered his body and began to speak through him. This was a watershed event for the COG.34 The reality and immediacy of angels, spirit helpers, and dark spirits became an ever-increasing dynamic of Family life. Virtually every disciple ­regularly prays for and receives comfort, assurance, and guidance from God through dreams, visions, or experiences of “prophecy” in a context of personal or communal prayer. Encounters with the Spirit World seem to have escalated in the wake of a terrible tragedy that struck The Family in the summer of 1995. A van full of young people was involved in a serious accident. Five teenage girls were killed. Voices from the Spirit World responded. Father David, Jesus, and the apostles Paul and Peter spoke in prophecy through several members of Maria’s personal household. Soon, the spirits of the five young women began to communicate from the Spirit World to other disciples, offering forgiveness to the driver, and expressions of joy and ecstasy at being in heaven with Jesus and Father David. Even before this incident, many disciples recounted moving and profoundly shaping experiences of visions, dreams, and encounters with the Spirit World. However, the Spirit World also has a dark side. The Devil and his demons are ever present and actively at work in the world. And the primary target is God’s own special End Time People. Opposition and persecution, physical illness, community discord, lack of disciplined behavior in children, and personal failures of all types are primarily conceptualized as the result of Satan’s attacks. The disciples are humorous people, with a wonderful capacity to laugh at themselves. But one never hears joking or in any way making light of evil spiritual forces. However, Father David clearly taught that Satan has no ultimate power over them. The disciples are confident that God is with them and that adequate spiritual power is accessible to eventually thwart any attack from the Dark Side. In keeping with their understanding of spiritual forces, disciples practice a form of spiritual healing common to the Pentecostal wing of Protestant evangelicalism. Conventional medical care is uniformly supported and disciples who pursue treatment for medical problems are not viewed as spiritually problematic. However, the fundamental cause of illness or physical affliction is most often understood to be spiritual. Thus, it is reasonable and prudent to seek a spiritual cure as a first response. The Children generally conceptualize problems, difficulties, and human weakness in distinctly spiritual terms. A significant number of young adults still carry unresolved resentment related to the dealing with typical childhood misbehavior as spiritual problems. However, most disciples are strengthened



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and empowered by their access to spiritual resources and power. The disciples interpret life as a profoundly spiritual adventure. This adventure is both personal and cosmic in scope.

The End of Days Millennial expectation is a central focus of theology. David Berg taught that human history would climax in a worldwide political, economic, and moral meltdown. The Antichrist will arise to save the world and for three and a half years will establish his reign as a wise and benevolent leader. Then, his true nature will be revealed. He will declare his divinity and require the world to worship and obey him, persecuting unto death all those who refuse. Satan, acting through the Antichrist, will have almost total control of the earth. All people will be required to carry the “Mark of the Beast” as a control mechanism. The Great Tribulation will last for three and a half years; then Christ will return for his Church. The Antichrist will be defeated in the Battle of Armageddon, Satan will be bound, and Christ will establish His Millennial Reign on earth. At the end of a thousand years, Satan will be released for one final confrontation. At Satan’s ultimate defeat, the Kingdom of Heaven will be established forever, and God’s Children will live with Him in the Heavenly City.35 This overall construct is generally consistent with beliefs that are held in substantial sections of the Christian church. What distinguishes Family theology is the special role they will play in this grand drama, and the intensity of their conviction that the End Time is near. The disciples do not “believe” The End is near, they know it. And they live out their lives accordingly. Early in the movement there was considerable hope that 1993 would be the time, and there was considerable disappointment as the year past. Since then, The Family has been reluctant to set specific dates. But the knowledge that each day is lived in the shadow of the End remains a powerful dynamic and informs life at all levels. It continues to serve as the primary motivation and justification for the life of sacrifice and hardship. Until very recently, Family disciples have been loath to make long-term plans for life in this world. Disciples do not plan for the future. The decisions they make are profoundly informed by the imminence of the End. The depth and intensity the End Time Vision clearly sets them apart. There is also a firm conviction that their separation from the world, absolute dependence on God, communal lifestyle, suffering, and hardship will uniquely prepare them both to survive the Great Tribulation and lead other faithful Christians through those very dark years.

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The System Family disciples have a strong sense of special status with God, a status that sets them in full and deadly opposition to the world that is under the control of Satan, the System. The System is evil, dangerous, corrupt to the core, and forms the fundamental “other.”36 And the disciples maintain as much distance from the System as possible. They hold passports, obtain driver’s licenses, and get legally married when necessary. But they operate on the fringe, with as little interface with government or any other System institution as possible. They do not participate in civic life at any level. They educate their own children. They intentionally insulate themselves as much as possible. In general, this insulation extends to Christians outside the movement, especially the institutional church. This position has moderated over the last few years, and the disciples are much more open to working in cooperation with Christians outside their community. But they generally do not identify or “fellowship” with outsiders, and the basic view of the Church as part of the System remains. Their special status with God carries a high price. The disciples live in an almost continual crisis environment. To survive and complete the assigned mission requires absolute dedication and requires a level of unity and discipline that can be only achieved through a structure of authority similar to that of a military establishment. Although authoritarianism has softened and the leadership structure is more open and democratic under the Charter, participation in God’s elite End Time Army still requires total obedience to God, and to the structures of authority God has ordained in Father David and the leadership of that Army. When questioned about the problems arising from the authority structure, many are quite open. Several themes consistently emerge. The era prior to 1978 is the Dark Age of the abuse of power. The disciples believe that changes in policy and spirit have worked to minimize the potential for mistreatment and abuse. However, the RNR did not alter the basic orientation that requires an authoritarian system of community organization and control. Generally, the disciples hold a complex and somewhat ambivalent appreciation of the authoritarian nature of their movement. They accept the necessity of discipline and clear lines of authority. They are aware of trials, trauma, and abuse. Yet, even in the face of serious abuse and profound personal loss, disciples consistently attribute these difficulties to the character flaws of individuals. They do not find fault with the nature of the community, and especially not the vision or leadership of Father David or Maria. Radical commitment to Jesus, the Prophethood of Father David, communion with the Spirit World, and the End Time Vision inform every facet of Family life. The Children have also retained their early vision of “Revolution for Jesus.”



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And no aspect of their shared experience has been more “revolutionary” than the total restructuring of the sexual ethic.

Sexual Ethos The renunciation of the “System,” interplay with the Spirit World, and authoritarian leadership structure have set The Family off as an unusual and distinctive religious movement. But it is their “revolutionary” theology of human sexuality that has marked them off, in the minds of many observers, as a “dangerous cult.” It is the single most distinguishing mark of this most unusual community. The sexual lifestyle of The Family is grounded on two assumptions that flowed straight from the mind of the Prophet. The first premise is that sex is not only a clean and pure God-given gift but also a basic human need, essentially no different than the need for sleep, food, or water. Therefore, it is not only acceptable, but a Christian duty to meet the need of a brother or sister. The second premise flows out of the special nature of the time and the people. Father David taught the disciples that the close of the age required new and innovative understandings of God’s purposes and His will. As well, the Children were God’s Chosen End Time Army, and as such had received a special dispensation, freeing them from some of the legal and ethical constraints that are normative to the less committed Christian community still operating in the System. This is “The Law of Love.”37 Sexual purity was a key element of the early COG lifestyle. However, when the “revolution” came, it came swiftly and fully. Many could not make the adjustment and left. Those that stayed made the adjustment, and the new sexual ethos spread rapidly throughout the worldwide community. We have already addressed the three principle components of the revolution; sexual sharing, Flirty Fishing, and childhood sexuality. Sexual sharing had a twofold purpose. The first was the straightforward enjoyment of sexual pleasure and fulfillment by as many disciples as possible. The other purpose was to break down old, System loyalties and allegiances, in order to establish primary loyalty to The Family and to the Prophet. By the early 1980s, The Family had reached a level of sexual freedom and experimentation rarely imagined, never mind practiced by most human beings. Nudity was a common feature of home life. Father David lay open the possibility of lesbian intimacy, though he maintained a strong aversion to male homosexuality. Flirty Fishing was ubiquitous, and the vast majority of women were having regular sexual encounters with both strangers and long-term “fish,” in order to fulfill the mission and support the home. Sexual sharing with multiple partners became so commonplace that in some areas the home leader would post “sharing schedules” on the bulletin board. Twelve-year-old

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children were considered “adults” and often sexually initiated into the group. Sexual interplay with even younger children was never officially sanctioned, but did occur from time to time and place to place. But this almost limitless freedom came with a heavy price. We have already addressed the dangerous, and then life-threatening spread of STDs throughout the movement. Beyond that immediate threat, it is not hard to imagine the strain such activity placed on normal marital and family relationships. And then there are the children. They suffered not only from direct sexual encounter, but also from the instability of family life, never being quite sure whom their mother might be sleeping with the next night. It is little wonder that very few of the first wave of children remain in The Family. In time, Family leadership became cognizant of these issues and began to address them. Flirty Fishing was halted and all sexual contact with the outside world was banned.38 Strictly enforced limitations were placed on the sexual experience of children, and fixed age limits were established for any sexual contact. And the practice of sexual sharing has cooled off considerably, since the wild years of the early 1980s. For one thing, the first generation is beginning to gray, and it is hard to imagine them keeping up the pace. And the second generation paid the price for such rampant promiscuity. They are not anxious at all to head down that road. In general, the younger generation is considerably more conservative than their parents. But the essential theological convictions on which the sexual ethos is grounded remains intact. Although Flirty Fishing was halted, it was never repudiated. Quite the contrary, it is still viewed as a valid and proper technique for the times. And some women are nostalgic for the old days. The Law of Love remains in force, and sexual sharing is still a significant component of The Family lifestyle and an essential aspect of communal bonding. Maria has actually found it necessary, on several occasions, to admonish the older teens and young adults to be more sexual active, participating more fully in the “sexual fellowship” of the community.39 The continued prominent place of sexuality in Family ideology is clearly demonstrated in the most recent sexual innovation, the “Loving Jesus Revolution.” Maria and Peter received revelations from Jesus that he was most pleased with their commitment and fulfillment of their mission, but was not fully satisfied with the level of their devotion and the expression of their love for him. Jesus wants it more clearly understood that the Children are his Bride, and he is their Husband.40 To that end, in 1996 The Family began to incorporate the sex act into their private worship of Jesus. This is done though auto-stimulation, or during sexual intercourse with a partner, imagining that partner as Jesus and expressing one’s love for the Lord through the sexual



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partner. The Loving Jesus Revolution, like many of the innovative practices of The Family, was too much for some disciples, and they moved on. But in general, the revolution has been accepted and is now a common feature of the disciples’ devotional life. There is a place for “Loving Jesus” within group devotional experiences, but not in the presence of children. The disciples have experienced any number of undulations in their sexual lifestyle. But there is little doubt that the “revolution” begun by Father David in the early 1970s lives on and remains integral to Family identity.

The Future of The Family It seems clear that the golden age of the “radical, revolutionary COG” is behind them. The disciples have matured considerably in the expression of the revolutionary components that remain. The Consider the Poor Ministry, the large number of the second generation leaving, and the more recent Activated Program are clearly blurring the once very sharp lines between discipleship and the System. The continual reduction in tension with the outside world is evident in many areas. However, the disciples still understand themselves to be God’s unique End Time Army. The Family would like a truce with the greater Church, but has no interest in joining the team. Surely the greatest challenge facing The Family is an internal one. Their unique role in God’s Mission remains justified and energized by the passionate and unequivocal expectation of the imminent End of Days. Like many movements before them, they will have to come to terms with an extended stay in human history. But if The Family is anything, it is flexible. They have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to survive repression, persecution, monumental leadership failures, and radical theological restructuring. They have survived the death of the Prophet and come to terms with the loss of many of their youth. Given their eccentricities, it is doubtful The Family will ever become a large movement. But they are a people filled with energy, confidence in their calling and mission, and above all hope. That hope has carried them though many dark nights, and there is no reason to believe that it will not carry them well into the future.

Notes 1. “The Great Escape!” Mo Letter no. 160. Zurich: World Services. 2. “The Old Church and the New Church!” Mo Letter no. A, August 1969. Zurich: World Services. 3. “I Gotta Split?” Mo Letter no. 28, December 1970. Zurich: World Services.

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4. “Shiners?—or Shamers!” Mo Letter no. 241. Zurich: World Services. 5. “The Shake-Up!—or Reorganization—The New Revolution Part 3—The Chain of Cooperation.” Mo Letter no. 328C, February 1975. Zurich: World Services. 6. “The Family of Love—Sin or Salvation?” GP no. 502R. Zurich: World Services. 7. “Re-organization Nationalization Revolution.” Mo Letter no. 650, January 1978. Zurich: World Services. 8. The Book of Davidito. 1982. Zurich: World Services. 9. “Fellowship Revolution.” Mo Letter no. 1001, April, 1981. Zurich: World Services. 10. “Teen Terrors!” Mo Letter no. 1512. Zurich: World Services. 11. “The Seven Fs of Ffing.” Mo Letter no. 1083, January 1983. Zurich: World Services. 12. “The Devil Hates Sex!—But God Loves It!” Mo Letter no. 999, May 1980. Zurich: World Services. 13. “Ban the Bomb!” Mo Letter no. 1434, March 1983. Zurich: World Services. 14. “Sex with Babes?” Mo Letter no. 1909, December 1984. Zurich: World Services. 15. “Discipleship Training Revolution.” Mo Letter no. 2677. Zurich: World Services. 16. WS Advisory, “Tightening up our Family.” July 1989. Zurich: World Services. 17. “1994 Family Statistical Report.” January 1995. Zurich: World Services. 18. “PEN—Persecution End Time News.” October 1993. Zurich: World Services. 19. See “BI Case,” in James D. Chancellor, Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 133–134. 20. “The Old Church and the New Church!” Mo Letter no. A, August 1969. Zurich: World Services. 21. “Go to the Churches.” Mo Letter no. 2867. Zurich: World Services. 22. “The Ministry of Reconciliation.” New Good News, no. 653, October 1995. Zurich: World Services. 23. “Consider the Poor!—Our New Ministry in the U.S. to the Poor!” Mo Letter no. 2755, March 1992. Zurich: World Services. 24. “The Board Vision.” GN no. 949 CM/FM, August 2001. Zurich: World Services. 25. “The Shakeup 2000–The S2K!” GN no. 3257, September 1999. Zurich: World Services. 26. “Coming Persecution: Conviction versus Compromise Part 1.” GN 957 CM/FM, September 2001. Zurich: World Services. 27. “Understanding Prophecy!” GN no. 876 CM/FM, January 2000. Zurich: World Services. 28. “Three Gifts of the Lord’s Love!” Mo Letter no. 3005, March 1995. Zurich: World Services. 29. “Heading into 2002!” GN no. 3382A CM/FM, December 2001. Zurich: World Services. 30. Personal interview with Maria and Peter Amsterdam. October 2002. 31. “The Word, The Word, The Word!” Mo Letter no. 2494, November 1988. Zurich: World Services.



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32. See Chancellor, Life in The Family, Appendix A, for the complete “Family Statement of Faith.” 33. “A Psalm of David!” Mo Letter no. 152, January 1972. Zurich: World Services; “The Laws of Moses!” Mo Letter no. 155, February 1972. Zurich: World Services. 34. “Abrahim The Gypsy King: The True Story of Our Spirit Guide.” Mo Letter no. 296, April 1970. Zurich: World Services. 35. See Chancellor, Life in The Family, Appendix A, Section 29, “Eschatological or Prophetic Considerations,” 267–270. 36. “A Prophecy Against Our Enemies!” Mo Letter no. 188, October 1972. Zurich: World Services. 37. “The Law of Love!” Mo Letter no. 302, March 1974. Zurich: World Services. 38. “The Ffing/Dfing Revolution—The Book is the Hook!” Mo Letter no. 2313, March 1987. Zurich: World Services; “Moma on the New AIDS Rules—It’s Come to That!” Mo Letter no. 2346, September 1987. Zurich: World Services. 39. Personal interview with Maria and Peter Amsterdam, October 2002. 40. “Loving Jesus Revelation!” Mo Letters no. 3024 and 3025, July 1995. Zurich: World Services.

Bibliography pri m ary sou rces

“The Family History.” Unpublished. The Story of Davidito. 1982. Zurich: World Services. The Book of the Future. 1984. Zurich: World Services. PEN—Persecution End Time News. 1993. Zurich: World Services. “The Ministry of Reconciliation.” 1995. Zurich: World Services. The MO Letters. Vols. 1 to 7. Zurich: World Services. secon dary sou rces Bainbridge, William S. 2002. The Endtime Family: Children of God. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Bozman, John. 1998. “Field Notes: The Family/Children of God under the Love Charter.” Nova Religio 2, no. 1: 126–135. Bromley, David, and Sydney Newton. 1994. “The Family: History, Organization, and Ideology.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 41–46. Stanford, CA: Center for American Publication. Chancellor, James D. 2000. Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

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Davis, Deborah. 1984. The Children of God: The Inside Story. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Books. Davis, Rex, and James T. Richardson. 1976. “The Organization and Functioning of the Children of God.” Sociological Analysis 37: 321–339. Lynch, Zelda. 1990. “Inside the ‘Heavenly Elite’: The Children of God Today.” Christian Research Journal, Summer: 16–21. McMannus, Una, and John Cooper. 1980. Not for a Million Dollars. Nashville, TN: Impact Books. Melton, J. Gordon. 1994. “Sexuality and the Maturation of The Family.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 71–96. Stanford, CA: Center for American Publication. Millikan, David. 1994. “The Children of God, Family of Love, The Family.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 181–252. Stanford, CA: Center for American Publication. Palmer, Susan. 1994. “Heaven’s Children: The Children of God’s Second Generation.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 1–26. Stanford, CA: Center for American Publication. Richardson, James T., and Rex Davis. 1983. “Experiential Fundamentalism: Revisions of Orthodoxy in Jesus Movement Groups.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 51, no. 3: 397–425. Shepherd, Gary, and Lawrence Lilliston. 1994. “Field Observations of Young People’s Experiences and Role in The Family.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 57–70 Stanford, CA: Center for American Publication. Van Zandt, David. 1991. Living in the Children of God. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Vogt, Nancy R. 1998. “Correlates of Adolescent Sexual Activity in The Family, a Religious Group.” PhD diss., Fuller Theological Seminary. Wallis, Roy. 1976. “Observations on the Children of God.” Sociological Review 24: 807–829. ———. 1981. “Yesterday’s Children: Cultural and Structural Change in a New Religious Movement.” In Social Impact of New Religious Movements, edited by Bryan Wilson, 97–133. New York: Rose of Sharon Press. ———. 1987. “Hostages to Fortune: Thoughts on the Future of Scientology and the Children of God.” In The Future of New Religious Movements, edited by David Bromley and Phillip E. Hammond, 80–90. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Wangerin, Ruth. 1982. “Make–Believe Revolution: A Study of the Children of God.” PhD diss., City University of New York.



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Williams, Miriam. 1998. Heaven’s Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult. New York: William Morrow. Wright, Stuart A. 1994. “From ‘Children of God’ to ‘The Family’: Movement, Adaptation, and Survival.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/ Children of God, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 121–128. Stanford, CA: Center for American Publication.

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The Unification Church Sarah M. Lewis

Origins Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) was born in what would become North Korea. His family converted to (Protestant) Christianity when he was a child. When Moon was 16 years old, he said that Jesus appeared to him and told him that he, Moon, had been chosen to complete the mission that Jesus had failed to complete. Moon embraced Christianity and after a short time studying engineering turned to full-time preaching. After some years he founded The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in 1954.1 As the name suggests, one of the aims was to unify Christianity. But for Moon, the idea of unification went far beyond one religion. His aim was to unite all religions, all nations, and all peoples under the umbrella of his religion. In 1996, Moon formed the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification as the institutional successor to the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Now, the majority of the work of the Unification movement is done under the banner of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF).2 The UPF’s website is extensive and highlights the vast number of ventures in which the group is involved and the work it does to promote world peace.

Basic Beliefs The theology of the Unification Church is contained within Divine Principle.3 Divine Principle is believed to clarify the meaning of the Old and New Testaments and through various types of analyses explain God’s current and future plan for humanity. It is seen as the Completed Testament. To form an understanding of Unification Church belief, particularly the formation and purpose of humanity, it is necessary to look initially at the



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Unificationist theories of the nature of God and the Principle of Creation (see Divine Principle; Chryssides 1991; Kim 1976). One of the leading theologians within the Unification Church, Young Oon Kim, writes, “By understanding the relationship of Creator and creature in its many ramifications, one can discover not only the reality and power of God, but also the nature and destiny of man, the value and purpose of the universe, the significance of human history, and the reasons for our hope of eternal life” (1976: 2).

Adam and Eve Unificationism argues that God is composed of dual characteristics, including male and female, and all existence is generated by these (Kim 1976; Lewis 2004: 71). So, everything in existence possesses dual characteristics and these dualities are complete opposites, yet they are also complementary units; they must both be present and function together correctly. Adam and Eve, as the first human ancestors, were an extension of God in the physical world; they were a part of God’s nature and reflected the male and female characteristics of God. Unificationism teaches that God’s purpose in creating was to give him joy. It urges that God’s most essential aspect is Heart (Divine Principle, 23), the impulse to love an object; God could not feel joy if he existed alone so he created to satisfy his desire to love and care for something. Adam and Eve were given the opportunity to receive God’s Three B ­ lessings— to grow to maturity, to marry and procreate, and to have dominion over creation. Had Adam and Eve fulfilled the Three Blessings, they would have become the True Parents of humanity and thus established the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. However, Eve was tempted by Satan (the spiritual Fall) before she had completed her growth period. Eve’s subsequent relationship with Adam (the physical Fall) was based on lust not love, and this symbolized the Fall of humanity.4 The sin was passed down through the generations and will only be eradicated by the Messiah. History for the Unification Church tells of the uphill struggle of humanity to reunite itself with God (Lee 1985). Throughout history there has, for Unificationists, been a constant struggle between Cain and Abel ideologies (manifested, in part, as communism and democracy); this takes place on every level from individual to global, as the struggle between God and Satan. History in Unificationism is composed of a series of unsuccessful attempts to restore the original relationship between God and his creation, and it is taught that God has worked through history in an attempt to establish his Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

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Jesus Immediately after the Fall of Adam and Eve, according to the Unification Church, God began to build the foundation upon which he could send the Messiah to realign humanity to him. The Unification Church teaches of the need for True Parents, that is, male and female, to lead humanity so the belief is that Jesus, as the Messiah or Second Adam, needed to marry to be in a position to reverse the Fall of the first human ancestors (Lewis 2012: 30) and to restore humanity to God; there needed to be the duality of male and female, to reflect the dual nature of God. The Fall was, according to Unification thought, the breaking down of the family unit; to reverse the Fall a family unit must be established. It is for this reason that Jesus could not fulfill his messianic role; he did not marry and did not produce children. Jesus’ Crucifixion is not recognized by the Unification Church as a part of God’s original plan (Lewis 2012: 30). Divine Principle (79) states that “it was a grievous error to crucify Jesus Christ” and when Jesus’ body was invaded by Satan he became unable to provide physical salvation. Divine Principle (149) states that “Salvation through redemption by the cross is spiritual only.” But because humanity fell spiritually (Eve and Satan) and physically (Eve and Adam), a new Messiah is needed to bring physical, and therefore complete, salvation; to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

The Lord of the Second Advent So, with the mission given to Jesus only being partially fulfilled, it is taught that a new Messiah had to be sent by God, a living physical Messiah (Lewis 2012: 31), and this person is known as the Lord of the Second Advent. Divine Principle does not state that Moon is the Lord of the Second Advent, but the information given leads to that conclusion. Unification theology teaches that the New Testament age resembles the Old Testament age and through the study of both one may predict what will occur in the present age (Kim 1976: 250), and that is how the identity of the new Messiah is determined. Many of Moon’s speeches have made reference to the new messianic role, but it was in the early 1990s that he was explicit about his being the “True Parent” and the Messiah. In various speeches made in 1992 he moved between declaring himself as “True Parent” and “Messiah” (Moon 1992b) and declaring that the Messiah is a couple, which therefore included his wife, Hak Ja Han, in the messiahship. He states that “the returning Messiah will come as the True Parents” and “the True Parents who come as the Messiah” (Moon 1992a). He also noted: “The True Parents will not make their advent on the



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clouds from the sky. Instead, they will appear in this age and on this earth as Koreans” (Moon 1992a).

The Blessing Moon, believed to have been born sinless, although with the freewill to sin, is in a position to grant salvation. This is done through the Blessing ceremony, which is the way to eradicate the Original Sin that has infected humanity (Lewis 2011: 582). Moon and Hak Ja Han and their biological children are the True Family and mediator between God and the rest of humanity. It is through the Blessing that others become part of the True Family. They then begin their own families and these families are a part of the new lineage, centered on God not Satan. Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han presided over the Blessing ceremonies and take on the sins of the couples they are blessing. With their words and actions they are believed to be engrafting those they bless onto their own family, and by extension God’s family (Colford 1994: 6). There are several components to the Blessing with the actual “public” ceremony being just one aspect (see Chryssides 1991). Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han were married in 1960, and this marriage is termed the “Marriage of the Lamb.” It was the most important union within the Unification Church and serves as a model marriage for members of the movement. With the Unificationist belief that the Kingdom of Heaven can only be established through the creation of True Families at the Blessing, the event is clearly of vital importance. Colford (1994: 6–8) urges that the most important goal for a Unificationist is to participate in the Blessing ceremony and it is the most significant of Unificationist rituals. Each couple stands in the position of a perfected couple, creating sinless children, separate from Satan for the first time in human history. The first mass wedding was in 1961 and saw the marriage of thirty-six couples. Guerra (1994) says that there is personal, historical, and cosmic significance to mass weddings; they restore historical and racial relationships, especially with the fact that the couples matched are usually from different nations or races. Through their holy mass weddings, the Unification Church believes that it is creating a new heavenly family tradition. It is trying to heal the broken relationships that have arisen not only in the family but also in society and the whole world.

Beyond the Doctrine Clearly the theology of the Unification Church, as presented in Divine Principle, is an essential underpinning to the movement. However, in practice the

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emphasis is on doing rather than just believing. Divine Principle gives the foundation for the beliefs, but it is the actions of the members that are important and members, as noted earlier, play the key role in fulfilling God’s plan for humanity. Eileen Barker ([1989] 1992) presents several reasons why new religious movements (NRMs) might appeal to individuals. They include the opportunity for religious experience, the opportunity for self-development, and the opportunity for Kingdom building. This latter appeal is of most relevance to the Unification Church. The aim of the Unification Church is to build God’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth and members are key to this happening. Unificationists are not waiting for salvation to be done to them, but play a role in bringing it about themselves. Barker says: the alternative which the Unification Church offers is one which seems both to recognise and to provide an explanation for the evils of the contemporary world. By making sense of the past, it offers hope for the future; it offers a clear direction, a clear leadership which knows what to do and how to do it. It is, paradoxically, a movement which offers freedom from directionless choices. ([1984] 1989: 243) The belief that its members work for the purification of society and the consequent establishment of God’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth was also present in the Korean NRMs contemporary with the Unification Church.5 Korean NRMs, including the Unification Church, grew out of a country that had been under occupation by the Japanese, that had been divided after the Second World War, and that had faced a war within its own borders. The idea of working to create something visible, usually a perfect world, is one of the attractions for converts to NRMs and never was this so pertinent than in Korea in the post–Second World War era. With the Korean people feeling unstable and spiritually starved, Christianity began to flourish, in part in the form of NRMs. The emphasis on the need to save society and country, as well as individuals, was popular under the circumstances and one that encompassed the needs of the Korean people at this time (Prunner 1980). Leaders like Moon realized that theology had to be relevant to social problems and the main tenet of this was the belief that true Christianity is to solve the han (discontent) among the people. Beginning as a Korean nationalist movement, alongside many others emerging in Korea at that time, the Unification Church took a more adventurous step and sent missionaries out of Korea to other parts of the world. It saw the United States particularly as a place of democracy and religious liberty and



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therefore having a role to play in God’s plan, so Korea may have been the starting point, but Moon’s vision was global.

Activities and Organizations Partly to fulfill the theology and vision of the movement and partly as an attempt to make the movement more appealing and acceptable to outsiders, Moon founded numerous organizations that would turn belief in to action (see Lewis 2011, 2012). “All Unificationist organizations are focussed on interreligious dialogue and world peace through unification and the promulgation of family values” (Lewis 2012: 37–38). The key organization and main face of the Unification Church now is the UPF (founded in 2005),6 which has involvement in all kinds of issues and events all over the world. The branches of the UPF in different parts of the world focus on different issues. The UPF in the West focuses largely on the Middle East and works with Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It also works on Africa Projects relating to HIV and AIDS. The UPF in Korea works toward the reunification of Korea, and different branches focus on the things of relevance in the country in which each branch is based. However, the ultimate aim of the UPF as a whole is to create peace and unity on earth. The Unification Church has had great success in gathering support for its ventures in promoting dialogue and peace, and also its environmental and humanitarian work. It would appear that gaining members through acceptance of its theology has not been anywhere close to its success in gaining support for the organizations it has created. Many key figures from the nonUnificationist world have shown support for these ventures (Lewis 2012: 38). For example, when the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences was at its peak, speakers included some of the world’s greatest scientists including Nobel Prize winners (Lewis 2011). Other organizations boast a following from influential individuals from all over the world. One of the reasons is likely to be that “the narrative is ideological and politicised and taps into common and shared values, things that many ideological people cannot help but want to be involved in, primarily world peace and environmentalism” (Lewis 2012: 40). The Unification Church has become about more than just accepting the messiahship of Sun Myung Moon and the theology that supports that. It has developed organizations, significantly now the UPF, that have grown out of the religion. Although the main tenets of the UPF have developed out of its religious beliefs, it does not require followers to accept the whole theological package; it is the social message that is giving strength and support to the movement.

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Controversies There has been plenty of discussion surrounding the defining of NRMs, the usefulness of the term “new religious movement” and why that term is preferable to “cult.”7 The decision of sociologists to introduce the term “NRM” to replace the term “cult,” with its negative connotations, made no difference to those who wanted to retain the negativity that the word “cult” holds. NRMs became so controversial that an entire movement emerged whose aim was to try to “rescue” people from them and also to alert society of their perceived danger. This is known as the anti-cult movement (ACM). Beckford (1999: 104) notes that it is not surprising that NRMs became controversial. He gives three reasons for this. First, so many of them emerged during the same time frame that it felt like an invasion. Second, those that were based in Eastern philosophies were foreign and things foreign are viewed with suspicion. Third, the people who joined the majority of the postwar NRMs were well-educated, wealthy (or at least comfortably off ), middleclass people. If it had been the nameless homeless who were joining, it is unlikely there would have been such concern. What the average person knows about NRMs they learn from the media, which is understandable. However, the problem is that media reports on NRMs are usually based on material supplied by anti-cultists; the reports are subjective, lack balance, and become sensationalist. Richardson and van Driel (1997: 116) examine “research carried out in the United States on the issue of possible bias and misinformation about new religions among journalists.” They question the “objectivity” and “neutrality” of journalists when writing about NRMs. James Beckford (1999: 115) notes that the term “cult” is: “a selfcontained and self-standing category which is of interest to the mass media for its own sake. Journalists need no other reason for writing about any particular NRM except that it is counted as a cult. This categorisation is sufficient to justify a story.” Beckford (1999: 110) highlights ways in which he believes the media “helps to generate and perpetuate conflict,” noting that journalists mostly get their material from the ACM. He notes further that a close relationship exists between the ACM and the media, and it is hard for anyone else to break into that. “Journalists function as the principal gatekeepers of public opinion especially on matters with which the person-in-the-street is not normally familiar” (Beckford, 1999: 110). Journalists are more likely to contact and quote members of the ACM than academic researchers when they want to write an article about NRMs. For example, when Michael Howard, the then Home Secretary (see BBC 2005; Rosenbaum 2006; Doughty and Salkeld 2005),



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banned Moon from Britain, the “expert” interviewed was Ian Haworth,8 an anti-cultist. Beckford (1999: 105) suggests one reason for the close relationship between newspaper journalists and the ACM is that the ACM does not present any theological information, is not claiming to be opposed to NRMs on theological grounds, and is not attempting to present a different religion to replace that of the NRM, and this is appealing to journalists. And for its part, the ACM says it is not attacking religion because they do not see the NRM as a religion. Beckford suggests, “the critics’ aim is to disqualify ‘cults’ from the category of ‘religion’ altogether, thereby framing problems as ‘economic,’ ‘political’ or ‘psychological’” (1999: 105). In other words, newspapers do not say anything about the fact that members of NRMs are individuals with beliefs, religious beliefs, but simply describe them as people involved in something corrupt or immoral. Newspapers do not use the kind of language that would lead the readers to think of the religious and belief aspect of the NRM. An image of “weird and dangerous” (Beckford 1999: 106) goings on in NRMs is created, rather than an image of ordinary people following their beliefs and practicing their religion. The Unification Church has been accused of numerous offences, the most significant being that it brainwashes people into joining, making it one of the most controversial NRMs. Those who argue that the Unification Church brainwashes its members believe that no one would join such a group through choice and that the only explanation there could be for someone becoming a member of the Unification Church is that they had been brainwashed into doing so. So, conversion would not be through active choice but through passive brainwashing, where free will is removed. Two key figures in the allegation that the Unification Church uses brainwashing in its recruitment are Steven Hassan and Margaret Singer. Hassan had been a member of the Unification Church and when he left he trained as a therapist and saw his role as “fighting destructive cults” (Hassan [1988] 1990: 1). He paints a horrifying picture of the “Moon cult” (76) and of other NRMs, describing his own experiences from the early process of indoctrination to the traumas of actually leaving the group. He states, “I am especially concerned with everyone’s right to know about the highly sophisticated techniques used by destructive cults to recruit, keep, and exploit highly talented, productive people” (Hassan [1988] 1990: 2). Margaret Singer believes that “cults are abusive and destructive to varying degrees” (Singer 1996: 88). She says they are violent, “engage in conspiracy and fraud,” and “take away our freedom” (88–93). In a chapter headed “The Threat of Intimidation” (Singer 1996: 209ff.), Singer discusses “cults” that

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“remain small” and “do not aspire to rule the world” (209) and cults that are the opposite, and it is into this category that the Unification Church is placed. Singer says that “one tactic is to recruit and exploit the professional sector, coopting those who by their training can serve the cult’s goals” (Singer 1996: 209). A second tactic, she says, is “to scare off critics” and a third to “spread themselves worldwide” where “by gaining footholds in government, the media, and the educational system, cults seek credibility and power and feign acceptance into the mainstream” (Singer 1996: 209). It is in this chapter that “Academics” are discussed (Singer 1996: 217). Singer states: “Some people committed to cultic groups become downright illogical in their support. For example, there is a small claque of social scientists who have become procult apologists” (Singer 1996: 217). Singer then makes reference to “trips to exotic places” as a reason why this might be so. Her first reference is to Eileen ­Barker’s The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? ([1984] 1989), about which Singer is highly critical. Barker’s aim was to examine whether members of the Unification Church had been brainwashed into joining. Singer criticizes Barker’s research methods, her conclusions, and how they are presented. Singer goes on to say that “cult apologists blame the victims and protect the villains” (Singer 1996: 219) and even states that the cult apologists “funnel potential recruits to cults.” One of the key events that fueled distrust of the Unification Church was its loss of a libel action it brought again the Daily Mail. On May 29, 1978, the Daily Mail published an article based on an interview with the mother of a member of the Unification Church (Barker [1984] 1989: 121). The content of the article compared the practices of the Unification Church to those used against prisoners during the Korean War and Second World War. It described the “sleep deprivation, protein withdrawal, sugar-buzzing” and the terrorizing of the individual. Members were described as “robots, glassyeyed and mindless” and the words of Moon as “half-baked ravings” (Barker [1984] 1989: 121). “The verdict of the jury was that the article was not libellous. The verdict was upheld by three Lords of the Court of Appeal” (122). Undoubtedly this event would have done an enormous amount of damage to the Unification Church and consolidated its position as a group dangerous to society. This was clear in December 1995 when Moon attempted to visit London to address his followers and selected guests personally. Michael Howard stated that this denial was “conducive to the public good” (see BBC 2005; Rosenbaum 2006; Doughty and Salkeld 2005). In an article after Moon’s death, the Daily Mail emphasizes the role it perceived it had in bringing the “truth” of the movement out into the open, with the article heading “Messiah of Misery: How the Leader of the Moonies Went from Peasant to Billionaire by Leading



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Cult that Brainwashed Millions . . . until the Daily Mail Exposed Him as a Fraud” (Rawstorne 2012). Undoubtedly, there are people who have had unpleasant experiences as members of some NRMs, and not just those caught up in a major event such as that of Jonestown or Waco. If anti-cultists meet those who appear to have come to harm during their membership in an NRM, it is not surprising that the conclusion is reached that the NRM was to blame. However, the problem is the generalizing done by people such as Hassan and Singer. Barker says, “It cannot be stressed enough that almost all generalisation about NRMs is bound to be untrue if it is applied to all the movements” (Barker [1989] 1992: 10). There does not appear to be the acknowledgment that abuse and deception and misery can occur in any situation and for any number of reasons and that these are not restricted to members of NRMs. Wherever such negatives exist, they need to be dealt with on an individual basis, using the law as necessary and appropriate, without making the assumption that all NRMs are the same and that one person’s experience in an NRM will be the same as those of others. An assumption appears to be being made that “world religions” are safe but NRMs are not, but where the distinction is to be made is unclear. Barker says: It is also true, however, that it is not only Moonies, but believers of all sorts of religions who are anxious that others should be privy to their own particular brand of Truth, who will present their beliefs in ways which they feel are most likely to get through to those whom they can persuade to listen. One rarely finds evangelists of any faith eagerly divulging the more esoteric or the less edifying aspects of their ideologies, their institutions or their leader’s lives. Most religions have some skeletons in their cupboards. ([1984] 1989: 179) Barker’s sociological approach to the question of brainwashing highlights numerous problems with the research that supports the brainwashing allegations (Barker [1984] 1989: 121–148). Barker details the evidence for the existence and use of brainwashing and explains the problems with it and the conclusions it leads to. One of her main arguments is the significant number of people who do not join the movement even if they have attended a workshop and also the high dropout rate of members; neither of these facts supports the brainwashing allegations. Barker also concludes that experiencing a Unification Church workshop does not put a person in a more vulnerable position than another situation would at that same time (147–148).

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In The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? Barker aims to be factual rather than passionate. She did speak with parents of members of NRMs and former members of NRMs, and she states clearly that the latter gave her a perspective she could not have got from current members. She is, however, critical of assumptions. The assumption that members are brainwashed limits inquiry and understanding of factors such as the “general social/political/­ economic milieu” (Barker [1984] 1989: 8) or the convert’s more immediate social background. Barker argues that making assumptions removes the need to look beyond, which is essential to gain an accurate picture of NRMs and conversion to them. Academic researchers see NRMs in a wider context of being, so they see more than just the controversy, but this is not the case with the ACM ­(Beckford 1999). The ACM sees academic researchers as apologetics for NRMs who interfere with the ACM’s aim to destroy NRMs. The argument surrounding brainwashing and NRMs may be seen by many now as an old outmoded argument, but it very much lives on within the ACM.

Recent Changes The death of Sun Myung Moon was the end of an era, but it does not have to mean the end of the Unification Church. Roy Wallis (1979: 178) notes that schisms “have a disproportionate tendency to occur on the death of charismatic leaders,” when authority becomes destabilized. It is true that followers can struggle to come to terms with the death of their leader and that there can be a fight for leadership after the leader’s death, resulting in schism or even collapse and disappearance of the group. Much depends on the preparations the NRM has undertaken in advance of losing the leader, how institutionalized the group has become, the actual role the leader played in the movement, and what the views are of the movement on life after death. Moon’s advancing years meant that discussions would have been held and arrangements put in place ready for when his death occurred, and this is the best way for an NRM to prepare for the loss of its founder and to attempt to secure its future. Moon’s obituary in The Guardian (Reed 2012) says that, without Moon, the future of the Unification Church looks bleak. It states that “a crucial test of a new religion is whether it transfers to the next generation after its founder’s demise . . . the prospects for . . . [the] Unification church . . . look poor.” The first part of this comment is fair but one cannot be so sure that the Unification Church cannot survive without Moon. Yes, he was the founder, the leader, the inspiration and the Messiah, but he was also the epitome of controversy, and



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the removal of a controversial charismatic leader may mean that the NRM eventually becomes more acceptable to those outside. However, it appears that a time of disorder has occurred within the Unification Church, in spite of having put in place a structure that could have allowed for an almost seamless transition to a future without Moon. In 2008, Hyung Jin Moon, the youngest son of Moon, was chosen as the International President of the Unification Church. Kook Jin Moon, another son, had already been appointed President of the Tongil Foundation, the Unification Church’s business empire. The appointment by Moon of two of his sons to take a lead in his organization could have been a good strategic move as it showed that Moon himself had decided on the way forward for the Unification Church and therefore the new appointments would have had a greater chance of being acceptable to members. However, serious problems developed, even before Moon’s death and by early 2013, both sons had been removed from their positions (see Lewis 2012; Moon 2012a; Kwon 2011). There have been other problems. One of the most significant was the decision of Moon’s third son (his eldest living son) Hyun Jin Moon to break away from the main organization, believing that it was becoming too inward looking and moving away from the core of Moon’s teachings (Lewis 2012: 42). The ultimate expression of this rift was the decision made by Hyun Jin Moon to not attend his father’s funeral (Moon 2012b). Hyun Jin Moon describes this decision as a painful one. He says: Clearly, this is a serious step. However, the Unification Church leadership, including members of my own family, has distorted his life work and teaching beyond all recognition. Their memorial service will try to legitimatize an idea of his legacy that has nothing to do with the principles that he lived by. My attendance would appear to endorse what they are doing. I do not. He goes on to say that he does not believe the main body of the Unification Church has remained true to his father’s beliefs, role, and vision of “committing his entire life and foundation to the providential mission of building a world of peace and reconciliation, centered upon the vision of One Family under God.” He even states that he has “long acknowledged that there was truth to at least some of the criticisms leveled by society against the Unification movement.” Hyun Jin Moon may have distanced himself from the main body of the Unification Church, but he does have significant support for his Global Peace Foundation.9

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The Future Having received and fought against criticism from outsiders for many years, it is unfortunate that it is members of the “True Family” who are now posing the greatest threat to the future of the Unification Church, particularly when a belief in traditional family values stands at the core. Sun Myung Moon’s death should neither constitute a failure of his vision nor a significant problem for the Unification Church. Moon completed his task in being the ­Messiah, provided humanity with its True Parents, fathered perfect children, and engrafted adoptive children into his Family, thus restoring the divine lineage into his own family and beginning the creation of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. If the Unification Church was just a religion, it would make sense theologically for the remaining half of the messiahship, Hak Ja Han, to lead the movement. But, the wealthy and influential business side of the Unification Church is making matters significantly more complicated. The most likely way for Moon’s legacy to live on is through the work carried out under the umbrella of the Universal Peace Federation, as that has brought significant support from outsiders to the Unification Church. But the church will need a solid leadership that can realign the focus from dealing with rifts and schisms to building a future for the movement; otherwise the outlook is certainly unpromising.

Notes 1. See Breen (1997) and Introvigne (2000) for Moon’s early history. 2. Universal Peace Federation http://www.upf.org/. 3. Divine Principle was published in the mid-1960s and translated into English in 1973. The 1973 edition is cited hereinafter in the text as Divine Principle. 4. Outline of the Principle, 56; hereinafter cited in the text. 5. See Prunner 1980; Chryssides 1991; Lewis 2004, 2011. 6. Universal Peace Federation, http://www.upf.org/. 7. See Troeltsch 1931; Barker 1992; Saliba 1995; Barrett 1998, 2001; Chryssides 1999. 8. Cult Information Centre, http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/. 9. Global Peace Foundation, http://www.globalpeace.org/.

Bibliography Allan, John. 1980. The Rising of the Moon. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press. Barker, Eileen. [1984] 1989. The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? Oxford: Basil Blackwell Limited.



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Barker, Eileen. [1989] 1992. New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction. London: HMSO. Barrett, David. 1998. Sects, “Cults” and Alternative Religions. London: Blandford. ———. 2001. The New Believers. London: Cassell. BBC. 2005. “Moonies Leader Returns to Britain.” November 5. http://news.bbc.co. uk/1/hi/uk/4408276.stm. Beckford, James A. 1999. “The Mass Media  and New Religious Movements.” In New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response, edited by B. Wilson and J. Cresswell. London: Routledge. 103–119. Breen, Michael. 1997. Sun Myung Moon: The Early Years 1920–53. Hurstpierpoint, UK: Refuge Books. Chryssides, George D. 1991. The Advent of Sun Myung Moon. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan. ———. 1999. Exploring New Religions. London: Cassell. Colford, Betsy. 1994. “Practical Responses to Evil: A Unification Perspective.” Speech given at the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace, “The Reality of Evil and the Response of the World’s Religions,” Seoul, Korea. Divine Principle. 1973. New York: HSAUWC. Doughty, Steve, and Luke Salkeld. 2005. “Throw Out the Moonies’ Messiah, Demand MPs.” Daily Mail, November 5. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-367693/ Throw-Moonies-messiah-demand-MPs.html#ixzz2b1Fua26V. Hassan, Steven. [1988] 1990. Combatting Cult Mind Control. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. Guerra, Anthony. 1994. “The Unification Understanding of the Problem of Evil.” Speech given at the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace, “The Reality of Evil and the Response of the World’s Religions,” Seoul, Korea. Introvigne, Massimo. 2000. The Unification Church. Studies in Contemporary Religion. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA: Signature Books. Kim, Young Oon. 1976. Unification Theology and Christian Thought. New York: HSAUWC. Kwon, Se Jin. 2011. “In-Depth Report Legal Dispute over the Unification ChurchOwned Parking Lot In Yeouido, Seoul.” Chosun Monthly, January 23. http://www. tparents.org/Moon-Talks/KookJinMoon/KookJinMoon-110123.pdf. Lee, S. H. 1985. The End of Communism. New York: Unification Thought Institute. Lewis, Sarah. 2004. “The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church).” In Encyclopedia of New Religions, edited by Christopher Partridge, 71–74. Oxford: Lion Publishing. ———. 2011. “The Unification Movement: Science, Religion and Absolute Values.” In Religion and the Authority of Science, edited by James R. Lewis and Olav Hamer, 571–588. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2012. “Global and Solitary: Dialogue and the Unification Church.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 3, no. 1: 27–45.

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Moon, Hyun Jin. 2012a. “Call for Resignation of Tongil Foundation Chairman Kook Jin Moon & Call to Resolve the Parc1 Crisis.” April 17. http://www.tparents.org/ moon-talks/HyunJinMoon-12/HyunJinMoon-120417.pdf. ———. 2012b. “Statement by Dr. Hyun Jin Moon regarding Unification Church Funeral Service for Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon.” September 13. http://www.­ hyunjinmoon.com/blog/statement-uc-funeral/. Moon, Sun Myung. 1992a. “Congratulatory Address to International Women’s Federation for World Peace.” Speech given at,  Seoul, Korea, April 10. http://www. tparents.org/Moon-Talks/SunMyungMoon92/SM920410.htm. ———. 1992b. “The Reappearance of the True Parents and the Ideal Family.” Speech given in Seoul, Korea, July 6. http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/­ SunMyungMoon92/SunMyungMoon-920706.htm. Outline of the Principle, Level 4. 1980. New York: HSAUWC. Prunner, G. 1980. “The New Religions in Korean Society.” Korea Journal 20, no. 2 (February). 4–15 Rawstorne, Tom. 2012. “Messiah of Misery: How the Leader of the Moonies Went from Peasant to Billionaire by Leading Cult That Brainwashed Millions . . . until the Daily Mail Exposed Him as a Fraud.” Daily Mail Online, September 4. http:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2197931/Messiah-misery-He-went-peasantbillionaire-leading-cult-brainwashed-millions--Mail-exposed-fraud.html. Reed, Christopher. 2012. “The Rev Sun Myung Moon Obituary.” The Guardian, September 2. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/02/rev-sun-myungmoon. Richardson, James T., and Barend van Driel. 1997. “Journalists’ Attitudes toward New Religious Movements.” Review of Religious Research 39, no. 2: 116–136. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/3512177. Rosenbaum, Martin. 2006. “Howard Defiant over Moonie Chief.” BBC, May 9. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4754641.stm. Saliba, John. 1995. Perspectives on New Religious Movements. London: Geoffrey Chapman. Singer, Margaret. 1996. Cults in our Midst: The Hidden Menace in our Everyday Lives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Troeltsch, Ernst. 1931. The Social Teaching of the Christian Church. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. Wallis, Roy. 1979. Salvation and Protest: Studies of Social and Religious Movements. New York: St Martin’s Press.

3

The Controversies about Peoples Temple and Jonestown Rebecca Moore

even before November 18, 1978, when more than nine hundred people died in Jonestown, Guyana, in a mass murder-suicide ritual, the story of Peoples Temple had been characterized by controversy. The spectacular deaths, in which parents administered poison to their children before ingesting it themselves, represented the culmination of a quarter century of tumult, rather than a one-day cataclysm. From its beginnings in Indiana in the 1950s, through its migration to Northern California in the mid-1960s, its rise in San Francisco in the early 1970s, and its move to Guyana, South America, in the mid-1970s, Peoples Temple generated rumor, scandal, and outrage. The death of the organization was no different from its life. Of the many issues and questions that emerge from the study of Peoples Temple, several appear again and again. They include the following: What was the level of violence in the organization? Was Jonestown a concentration camp? Was Jim Jones, the group’s leader, insane? Were the deaths in Jonestown suicide or murder? Were the deaths in Jonestown the result of a conspiracy? What are the lessons of Jonestown? While this chapter treats these issues of controversy, it begins by providing background information about Peoples Temple. Events arise out of a particular social and historical context. Without knowledge of this framework, the conflicts described make little sense. Moreover, strife alone tells only part of the larger story of Peoples Temple. The background which follows provides the setting in which the controversies occurred.

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Background Peoples Temple was founded by Jim Jones, his wife Marceline, and two others in 1955 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jones (b. 1931) was raised primarily by his mother Lynetta Putnam Jones and grew up feeling like he was poor white trash. His oratorical abilities, coupled with a deep understanding of and concern for social inequality, led him to preach on street corners, where he attracted impromptu interracial groups of listeners. While working part-time as a hospital orderly, he met Marceline Baldwin, who was completing her nursing training, and they married in 1949. After serving as a youth pastor at a Methodist Church and as an interim preacher at a Pentecostal church, Jones incorporated the Wings of Deliverance in 1955, along with Marceline, and Jack and Rheaviana Beam, who liked Jim’s biblical message of the Social Gospel. The small church had several other names and incarnations before it became the Peoples Temple Apostolic Church two years later. In 1960 the church was accepted into the Disciples of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination with a liberal social agenda. Under the able administration of Marceline Jones, Peoples Temple ran several in-home care facilities, which allowed it to help people and produce revenue at the same time. Jim Jones gained local attention for his commitment to desegregation and was named Chair of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission, a position he held only briefly. A concern over nuclear war led Jones to take Marceline and their family of five—one biological son and four adopted children—to Brazil in 1963 (supposedly one of the safest places in the event of nuclear war), where they lived for two years. Their return to Indianapolis found the church in disarray. After reasserting his leadership, Jones announced that he had a vision of nuclear holocaust that would wipe out Indianapolis. He had sent several scouting parties to Northern California— another one of the nuclear safety zones—before he declared that everyone should move with him to the small town of Ukiah. This was a significant moment in the history of the group: those who believed that Jones had divine prophetic abilities chose to go with him; those who did not, stayed behind. About eighty-five people, comprising both African American and white families, migrated to California with the Jones family. Ukiah was an insular town with an overwhelmingly white population with provincial attitudes toward blacks and outsiders, so life in rural Northern ­California was difficult for the interracial group. Jones organized proselytizing trips up and down the West Coast, and eventually bought church buildings in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, which became the group’s headquarters in 1976. Although Peoples Temple began to attract young, affluent,



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college-educated white members, the group was especially successful in attracting African American members from Bay Area black churches. Soon, between 80 and 90% of Temple members were black. Most came from the working classes, although some were middle class and some were extremely poor. The Temple provided a range of services to all its members, from legal advocacy to housing to medical care. In addition, the group began to focus on communal living, with the majority of committed members in San Francisco sharing apartments or housing in church-owned buildings. The politics and culture of San Francisco were much more sympathetic to the aims of Peoples Temple, so the group’s cohesion and organization made it possible for Jim Jones and the church to play an important role in the city, especially among social activists and political liberals. Church members participated in a number of progressive groups, and the Temple itself hosted speakers from African liberation organizations, the American Indian Movement, the Chilean resistance to a military dictatorship, and other leftist crusades. During this time, Jones’s religious message became infused with, and eventually yielded to, overtly political themes. On the one hand, he criticized the contradictions and brutalities in the Bible; on the other, he told his congregation that he was the incarnation of God. In addition to hearing political speakers and messages, Temple members witnessed miraculous healings, most of which later were revealed to be fraudulent. Members also participated in self-criticism sessions during which they received verbal and physical abuse. These abuses led a number of members to leave the church, departures which the organization called defections. The desertion of eight young adults in 1973 prompted the group to search for a safe haven abroad, in case defectors such as these decided to pursue their concerns in the media or with government authorities. The Temple feared that investigations at the local, state, and federal level might make it impossible to remain (Hall, 1987). The group’s leaders began negotiations for land with the government of Guyana, a small nation on the north coast of South America. Eager to open up its interior, the country was receptive to the Temple’s goals in its plan to establish an agricultural mission. By the time the Temple signed a formal lease in 1976 to develop an area of land almost 4,000 acres in size, small groups of pioneers had worked almost two years in clearing jungle and constructing the first buildings of what came to be known as Jonestown. Several events in 1977 served to prompt a mass exodus to Guyana. The Internal Revenue Service was investigating the organization, with an eye toward revoking its tax exemption. A bitter child custody battle triggered the removal of a young boy to Guyana. Fears of a fascist takeover in the United

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States also provoked the migration. Finally, a critical article from New West Magazine revealed a darker side to Peoples Temple that outsiders had not seen. In the course of six weeks, almost one thousand Temple members left their homes in the United States for Jonestown, crowding into housing intended for half as many people. The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project was located in dense jungle along the Venezuelan border with Guyana. Living conditions were primitive, but spirits were high, at least initially. Residents cleared hundreds of acres in order to grow crops, both for sustenance and for sale. A community school was accredited by the Government of Guyana. Most teenagers and young adults worked in the fields, however. Adults who were trained in health care provided medical assistance. Others who had technical skills worked in carpentry and skilled crafts, animal husbandry, the kitchen, the laundry, or any one of a number of jobs required for maintaining the community. Although it was hard work to establish and maintain a village of a thousand people, there were also moments of free time in which residents watched movies, enjoyed homegrown entertainment—like the rhythm and blues band Jonestown Express—or studied language and literature. It is undeniable that life in Jonestown was a far cry from the comforts of San Francisco. This meant that many residents—though by no means most— became disenchanted and wanted to leave. Public dissent was not tolerated, although privately residents wrote notes to Jim Jones complaining about issues ranging from the conditions of waterways to disruptions caused by dissenters (Stephenson 2005). Jones conceived a siege mentality by which he encouraged residents to believe that they were about to be attacked. Public safety drills, during which residents would be roused from sleep and urged to protect the community from real or imagined invaders, frequently occurred. White Nights—a more extreme exercise in civil defense—transpired more rarely: in another work, I estimate that a half dozen such incidents occurred between September 1977 and November 1978. During these White Nights residents announced their willingness to commit revolutionary suicide and thereby die for the cause (Moore 2009). At ensuing suicide drills, residents drank small cups of what they were told was poison. Because of the remoteness of Jonestown and the lack of access to family members living there, an oppositional group called the Concerned Relatives arose to demand the return of their family members—children and adults alike—to the United States. Members of the Concerned Relatives organized letter-writing and media campaigns to raise public awareness of the problems occurring in Jonestown. They succeeded in persuading California Congressman Leo J. Ryan to travel to Jonestown in November 1978.



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At first the congressman’s visit seemed to be a success. NBC News videotape from November 17 shows him smiling and expressing a wish that the enthusiastic residents lived in his congressional district. But reporters who accompanied him received notes from a few residents who wished to leave. The next day, Saturday, November 18, a group of sixteen people, comprising primarily members from two families, left with Ryan and his party. A few young men from Jonestown followed them to the Port Kaituma airstrip, six miles away, where they opened fire, killing the congressman, three reporters, and one of the defectors. Even as the shootings at the airstrip were taking place, Jones assembled residents in the central pavilion of Jonestown, where medical staff brought out a mixture of tranquilizers and poison. He exhorted parents to give the poison to their children. One resident, Christine Miller, argued on behalf of the children, but she was shouted down by other members of the community (Q 042, “Death Tape”). Although accounts of what happened and the sequence of events conflict with one another, it appears that parents did in fact administer poison to their children, before swallowing it themselves. About eighty Temple members survived the deaths that day, mainly by being in the capital city, Georgetown, or on the Temple’s sailing vessels, the Cudjoe and the Marceline. Of those who were in Jonestown at the beginning of the day, only thirty-six survived: sixteen people who left with the congressman; eleven people who escaped through the jungle that morning; and seven people inside Jonestown itself. Two people died of gunshot: my sister, Ann Elizabeth Moore, who shot herself; and Jim Jones, whose wounds were consistent with both suicide and homicide. These are the bare facts of the story of Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Yet many of the facts presented are in dispute and remain controversial despite the passage of more than three decades. The rest of this chapter analyzes these ongoing differences of opinion.

What Was the Level of Violence in the Organization? Some authors claim that the violence that occurred throughout the life of Peoples Temple was unremitting (Scheeres 2011). Accounts by some former members indicate a cruel degree of violence, including severe beatings and rape (Mills 1979; Layton 1998). Still other reports, however, indicate that group members accepted a certain level of violence as necessary for self-discipline and group cohesion (Roller 1975, 1976, 1977). Elsewhere I argue that four types of violence occurred within Peoples Temple: discipline, behavior modification, behavior control, and terror (Moore 2011). Some types of coercion would be socially acceptable outside the norms of Peoples Temple (discipline and behavior

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modification), while other forms would be unacceptable (behavior control and terror). Several points can be made about this. First, boxing matches, beatings with a “board of education” applied to the buttocks, verbal humiliation, and psychological abuse occurred in Peoples Temple. Shortly after the move to California, catharsis (or self-criticism) sessions occurred in which Temple members confessed to real or imagined crimes and accepted discipline or punishment as a deterrent against future infractions. Offenses ranged from stealing from the community, to making sexist remarks, to sleeping on the job. One disciplinary case was handled, a young girl, 12 years old, impeded a teacher in a hallway and when confronted had called the teacher a “bitch.” She was asked what she should get. She suggested 35 swats (as a clever compromise between the 25 and 50 people were suggesting, which Jim said showed how bright she was) and raising $100 in 2 months (Roller 1976). More serious transgressions included using or dealing drugs, and pedophilia. One member who had sexually abused a boy was beaten on the penis until it bled. “Perhaps where the psychiatrists have failed, a switch will succeed,” said Jones (Mills 1979: 269). This beating persuaded several members to quit the Temple. This leads to a second point: the victims of the violence were also the perpetrators. Audiotapes, journals, and articles by former members demonstrate that punishment was a collective endeavor. Group members informed on one another, confessed to one another, and abused one another. They boxed, paddled, and humiliated each other. While Jim Jones supervised the disciplinary system, the members themselves were the ones who acted as disciplinarians. A third point concerns the belief of members that the cruelty they imposed upon themselves was preferable to state-sanctioned violence. Some members faced jail or prison time for things they had done; others simply faced the wrath of the collective for the social crimes of sexism, ageism, elitism, and racism. While living in California, members believed it was preferable to deal with problems within the group. While living in Guyana, however, the group’s internally directed violence, and violent rhetoric, escalated.

Was Jonestown a Concentration Camp? The pioneers who constructed Jonestown from the ground up created a lovely settlement. Small painted cabins, flower-lined walkways, and a wooden basketball



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court all indicated the desire to make the community a utopian paradise. Workshops, a school, out buildings for animals, all showed foresight and organization. But events conspired to undermine all of the hard work, planning, and dreaming that had transformed the raw jungle into a vibrant community. Jonestown was extremely isolated. Getting there required a trip either by airplane over dense jungle, followed by a bone-jolting 35-mile ride in a fourwheel drive vehicle, or a 24-hour long trip in a boat from Georgetown along Guyana’s northern coast and up the Kaituma River to the village of Port ­Kaituma, six miles from Jonestown. This remoteness made it impossible for dissenters to walk away if they were unhappy, and thus allowed discipline to become more intense and more violent. Upon arrival, residents of Jonestown relinquished their passports, their money, and their belongings. They also gave up privacy, solitude, and the ability to think critically. Because the project was dependent upon Social Security payments to senior citizens totaling about $35,000 a month, and upon money raised in the United States by those remaining in California, it was imperative that only good reports emerge from Jonestown. Outward bound mail was reviewed by a committee, which allowed only glowing, almost formulaic letters to pass; correspondence into Jonestown was also censored and sometimes withheld. Jim Jones mediated news from outside, reading stories from Soviet and Eastern Bloc newswire services and commenting on events—real, exaggerated, or imaginary—happening back home. The two main crimes committed by Jonestown residents were shirking work and stealing food. Because these were offenses committed against the common good, the punishment was assignment to the “Learning Crew,” which meant more work and less food. People could earn time off the crew by showing a good attitude, voluntarily taking on a greater workload, or showing respect to supervisors. A lackadaisical attitude or disrespect might result in additional time on the crew. All decisions on punishments were made by Jim Jones, although residents of Jonestown reported the infractions and applauded his decisions. More serious offenses consisted of dissenting against established policies, expressing the desire to leave the “Promised Land,” or—worst of all—attempting to escape. One punishment for dissidents was assignment to the Special Care Unit, where they were given heavy doses of tranquilizers. About half a dozen individuals are known to have suffered in the Special Care Unit. Another punishment was assignment to “the box,” a sensory deprivation chamber used to modify behavior of recalcitrant repeat offenders. Edith Roller suggested using this tool against another resident: “I proposed she be put in isolation where she would not have paper to write complaints and could not communicate with

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people. Jim said that if assignment to the learning crew did not cure her, we might try some form of sensory deprivation” (Roller 1978). Marceline Jones was concerned about prolonged exposure to sensory deprivation and required medical staff to check on people in “the box” (Roller 1978). These methods were used to punish individuals. A more insidious form of violence was the terror Jones used to frighten people, especially children. He terrorized one woman by having an anaconda crawl over her until she begged for forgiveness (it is not clear what her crime was). He terrified two small boys by sending them into the jungle at night with the warning to watch out for tigers. On occasion Jones sentenced individuals to spend time in “the box” with animals they dreaded, like snakes or frogs. Jones repeatedly informed the community that a conspiracy existed against them and that death was imminent. Tired, overworked, and underfed, residents believed him. It needs to be made clear that these radical conditions in Jonestown did not commence until Jim Jones arrived in 1977 and did not begin in earnest until 1978. Conditions deteriorated dramatically after the defection in May 1978 of a high-profile leader, Debbie Layton, who reported to news media in California that group members planned to commit mass suicide. Morale spiraled downward the summer of 1978, and it was only in September—with the announcement that an actual conspirator against Jonestown existed, and that his disclosures might result in the end of the persecution that the community believed was orchestrated against them—that people once again had hope that things might improve.

Was Jim Jones, the Group’s Leader, Insane? If, by definition, planning and arranging the deaths of almost a thousand people is insane, then Jim Jones was indeed a madman. But that appellation is not helpful for understanding events in Jonestown, given the fact that, as noted above, others put the plan in motion. It was members of the Jonestown leadership who suggested various ways to kill residents, eventually ordering the poison, testing it on farm animals, and mixing and distributing it on the final day. Jones did not execute the plan, but he convinced others to adopt his worldview, both through persuasion and coercion. According to Reiterman and Jacobs (1982), Jones was mentally ill from the beginning. They report that as a child, he held funerals for animals he killed. They quote childhood friends who claim that Jones threatened them. They detail the occasions on which Jones dissembled or evaded the truth, or told outright lies. The audiotapes on the Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and



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Peoples Temple website clearly suggest reveal when Jones is telling the truth, and when he is making things up as he goes along. Rather than simply dismissing him as a lunatic, however, a more helpful analytic framework for understanding Jones is to assess his worldview and observe how it changed over time. As a young man, Jones seemed genuinely tormented by the social injustice he both experienced and witnessed. He fought against the currents of racism that existed in the 1950s, taking stands that required courage and conviction. After the move to California, two emphases emerged. The first was the outward and external stance of Peoples Temple against racism, colonialism, and global systems of domination. The second was the inward and internal stance of Jones, and then of his followers, against sex. At catharsis meetings, individuals “confessed” to being homosexuals or to engaging in homosexual behavior. Jones declared that he was the only heterosexual and that everyone else was homosexual. At the same time, Jones required members of his leadership team—both male and female—to engage in sex with him. Jones used sex as a tool to maintain control. He railed against the bourgeois family and its insular concerns about self and children. He broke up partnerships, couples, and families, separating husbands from wives, and children from parents. A relationship committee approved, and denied, petitions to date or see other Temple members. Members were vilified for being unfaithful to partners, and upon rare occasions, required to perform sex acts before the entire group. How could Jones get away with this, especially before the move to Jonestown? Smith (2004) describes the process of “audience corruption,” in which the ­interactions between leaders and followers are mutually destructive. “Followers learn to give the responses the leader wants them to learn; they feed them back to the leader on cue, who in turn believes even more in the power and rightness of his leadership” (Smith 2004: 48). Within a closed system, the leader is the sole authority because the people have given him, or her, that power. For Jones, the discussion or consideration of love (or sex) was superseded by a focus—and eventually an obsession—with death. The necessity of selfdenial was discussed in San Francisco, but in Jonestown a rhetoric of martyrdom was reiterated and suicide was rehearsed. Although the group researched re-location to a Communist country like the Soviet Union, Cuba, or North Korea, Jones desired only one translation: the one from life to death. Edith Roller reports Jones as saying “The last orgasm I’d like to have is death if I could take you all with me” (Roller 1976). Jones consummated that wish.

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Were the Deaths in Jonestown Suicide or Murder? Initial accounts of the deaths in Jonestown characterized them as suicides, beginning in the predawn hours of November 19 when a CIA memo reported “mass suicides” (The NOIWON Notation 1978). News coverage during the first week followed the lead given by government sources, as indicated by references to mass suicide rather than mass murder. On November 24, the deaths were described for the first time as “mass suicide and killings,” although headlines still called it the “Sect’s Suicide Rite.” Three days later, on November 27, New York Times reporter Jon Nordheimer was the first to term it the “mass murder-suicide,” and other writers soon described the deaths as “killings and suicides.” Eventually these specific descriptors were replaced by “massacre” and “tragedy,” terms that reflect the writers’ attitude toward the deaths. The mass suicide description was never accurate, of course, since the 300 infants and children could not choose to die in any meaningful sense of the word “suicide.” Still, early eyewitness accounts indicated that most adults voluntarily took the poison. As mentioned above, an audiotape made at the time revealed that only a single person, Christine Miller, verbally dissented, and she was shouted down by the crowd (Q 042). Odell Rhodes, who escaped from Jonestown on November 18, has consistently stated that most died ­willingly (Feinsod 1981). Stanley Clayton, a young black man who fled during the deaths, initially reported only a single person resisting, but later claimed that a number of others resisted (Wooden 1981). Dr. Leslie Mootoo, the Guyana government pathologist who went to Jonestown following the deaths, observed injection marks on the upper arms of at least eighty adults, and ­questioned whether these individuals died voluntarily. Citing Dr. Mootoo’s testimony, a number of writers have characterized the deaths as murder (Hougan 1999). The 2006 edition of the jonestown report featured a forum titled “Was It Murder or Suicide?” in which a dozen writers, myself included, weighed in on the topic (“Was It Murder or Suicide?” 2006). Some authors argued strongly that it was murder, because Jonestown residents did not seriously intend to kill themselves; nor did they have any choice in the matter. As Josef Dieckman writes: “There was only one option: death. The only ‘choice’ they were offered was whether that death would be by their own hand or by someone else’s. That’s not choice, that’s murder” (Dieckman 2006). However we may understand the nature of the deaths in Jonestown, we cannot escape the fact that events of the last day were carefully organized and rehearsed a number of times. My two sisters, Carolyn Layton and Annie Moore,



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are implicated in the planning process, as are a number of other leaders in Jonestown. Even conceding that the death of a child could not be considered a suicide, the following question remains: How did the parents who killed their children in Jonestown view their own actions? On several documented occasions, the people of Jonestown openly discussed the possibility of killing their children. During one White Night on April 12, 1978, as recorded on audiotape, residents announce their willingness to take the lives of their children rather than leave them for the fascists to find. Jones elaborates, saying that they are already prepared to be “genuinely compassionate” in the case of such an emergency. If the child were over the age of 11, “she would take up a cutlass and fight till she was dead, unless it came to an overwhelming invasion, and then we would gently put them to sleep” (Q 637). These facts undermine claims that adults in Jonestown did not voluntarily die that day. Would parents want to continue to live, once their children were dead? It seems unlikely that the armed guards who surrounded the perimeter of Jonestown (and who in the end committed suicide as well) were necessary at that point.

Were the Deaths in Jonestown the Result of a Conspiracy? Because preliminary accounts of the deaths were conflicting—the body count rose each day that first week from an initial toll of 408 to a final number of 909—a number of conspiracy theories surfaced to explain the discrepancies. Elsewhere I identified three main groupings of Jonestown conspiracies: those by well-known professional conspiricists, such as John Judge and Mark Lane; Internet conspiracy theories by professional conspiricists, such as David Ickes; and nonprofessional conspiracy theories that focus strictly on Jonestown (Moore 2002). Conspiracy theories about Jonestown take a number of different approaches. Some claim that the CIA or a similar agency of the US government conducted a mind control experiment at Jonestown, using drugs to brainwash people into killing themselves. Some claim that Jonestown residents were actually murdered by British or American Special Forces who did not want to see expatriate Americans, especially African Americans, immigrate to Russia. Other theories hold that various government agencies murdered Jonestown residents in order to hide or cover up a larger operation, such as the development of the AIDS virus, or the murder of rogue CIA agent Jim Jones; or to mask the assassination of Congressman Ryan, who had co-sponsored a law which provided greater congressional oversight of the CIA.

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A rumor that continues to circulate is that Jim Jones did not really die in Jonestown; instead, he escaped with the millions of dollars he had stashed in foreign banks around the world. A variation on this theme is that Jones planned to enact a right-wing coup in the United States, the first step of which was the assassination of Leo Ryan. What the conspiracy theories have in common is the shared belief that no one in their right mind would either kill their children or commit suicide at the behest of an obvious madman. This leads to the logical and inevitable conclusion that the deaths must have been perpetrated by an outside agency. And so the question really turns only on who those perpetrators might be. Conspiracy theories, somewhat perversely, try to maintain the moral order by demonstrating that the universe operates according to the rules laid out by conspirators, rather than operating according to random or arbitrary stimuli. Questions about what happened in Jonestown certainly remain. Freedom of Information Act documents indicate that the CIA had a presence in Guyana, whom most analyses identify as Richard Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Georgetown. Dwyer had visited Jonestown several times and was there on the last day. A mysterious tape found among the hundreds of tapes collected in Jonestown includes a radio news program from the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation made after the deaths (Q 875). The most disturbing unanswered question is whether agencies of the US government knew of the plans to commit suicide and, if so, what they did with the information: did they actively promote or provoke the events of Jonestown’s last day, or did they cover up their decisions not to act on the intelligence? The fact that hundreds of government documents about Peoples Temple remain classified continues to lend credence to some theories.

What Are the Lessons of Jonestown? “Jonestown” has become a shorthand way of alluding to the dangers of cults and new religions. In the 1980s, the anti-cult movement used the threat of “future Jonestowns” in attempts to promote restrictions on religious liberties. These efforts failed. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, anti-cultists again tried to link terrorists with cultists, drawing parallels between Jim Jones and Osama bin Laden. The most ubiquitous appearance of Jonestown occurs in the expression “Drinking the Kool-Aid,” a term that suggests either blind obedience or unswerving loyalty, especially to sports teams. Elsewhere I document the various ways “Drinking the Kool-Aid” entered American lexicon, arguing that “the only explanation for this radical shift in meaning—from Kool-Aid as deadly to



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Kool-Aid as desirable—is the incredible distancing from Jonestown that has occurred” (Moore 2003: 99). If anything, references to and variants on the phrase have only increased in the intervening decade. Despite this distance, people continue to be intrigued by Peoples Temple and the events in Jonestown. Adolescents and young adults born long after 1978 find meaning in history reports and school papers about the subject. Artists of all kinds—poets, painters, novelists, musicians—interpret and reframe the events in a variety of media. The lessons of Jonestown are still being written as new generations take a second look at the complicated and controversial subject of Peoples Temple. The controversies surrounding Peoples Temple do not tell the whole story of this fascinating and notorious group. In many respects, focusing on the scandal and outrage obscures other important and noteworthy elements of this new religious movement. These striking elements include: the idealism of thousands of members in California to develop a just and egalitarian society; the commitment of a thousand members to move to Jonestown to create a workable communitarian experiment; and the participation of women at the highest levels of leadership, to highlight just a few. The story of Peoples Temple and its members neither began nor ended on November 18, 1978; therefore, the controversies about Peoples Temple should be considered within the larger perspective of its complete and complex history.

Bibliography Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu. Dieckman, Josef. 2006. “Murder vs. Suicide: What the Numbers Show.” the jonestown report. Vol. 8. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=31969. Feinsod, Ethan. 1981. Awake in a Nightmare: Jonestown: The Only Eyewitness Account. New York: W. W. Norton. Hall, John. 1987. Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Hougan, Jim. 1999. “Jonestown: The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue.” Lobster 37 (Summer): 2–20. Also at Alternative Considerations, http://jonestown. sdsu.edu/?page_id=16572. Layton, Deborah. 1998. Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor’s Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple. New York: Anchor Books. Mills, Jeannie. 1979. Six Years with God: Life Inside Rev. Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple. New York: A & W Publishers. Moore, Rebecca. 2002. “Reconstructing Reality: Conspiracy Theories about Jonestown.” Journal of Popular Culture 36, no. 2 (Fall): 200–220. Also on Alternative Considerations, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16582.

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Moore, Rebecca. 2003. “Drinking the Kool-Aid: The Cultural Transformation of a Tragedy.” Nova Religio 7, no. 2: 92–100. ———. 2009. Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Westport, CT: Praeger. ———. 2011. “Narratives of Persecution, Suffering, and Martyrdom: Violence in Peoples Temple and Jonestown.” In Violence and New Religious Movements, edited by James R. Lewis, 95–111. New York: Oxford University Press. “The NOIWON Notation.” 1978. Alternative Considerations, http://jonestown.sdsu. edu/?page_id=13678. Q 042. “Death Tape.” Alternative Considerations, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id= 29079. Q 637. Alternative Considerations, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27509. Q 875. Alternative Considerations, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27601. Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. 1982. Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People. New York: E. P. Dutton. Roller, Edith. 1975–1978. “Edith Roller Journals.” Alternative Considerations, http:// jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=35703. Scheeres, Julia. 2011. A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown. New York: Free Press. Smith, Archie, Jr. 2004. “An Interpretation of Peoples Temple and Jonestown: Implications for the Black Church.” In Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America, edited by Rebecca Moore, Anthony B. Pinn, and Mary R. Sawyer, 47–56. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Stephenson, Denice. 2005. Dear People: Remembering Jonestown. San Francisco and Berkeley: California Historical Society Press and Heyday Books. “Was It Murder or Suicide: A Forum.” 2006. the jonestown report. Vol. 8. http:// jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=31981. Wooden, Kenneth. 1981. The Children of Jonestown. New York: McGraw-Hill.

4

The Branch Davidians Eugene V. Gallagher

The Branch Davidians immediately achieved national and international notoriety when the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) executed a military-style raid on their Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas, on February 28, 1993. The affidavit in support of the “search and arrest warrant,” composed by BATF agent Davy Aguilera, listed a wide array of infractions that the members of the small sectarian group were alleged to have committed, including child abuse, unconventional sexual activity, and drug use.1 The inflammatory charges in the affidavit primed the BATF to make a “dynamic entry” into the Mount Carmel Center, with no plans for a peaceful serving of the warrant. Unfortunately for all involved, the incursion by ­seventy-six heavily armed BATF agents went horribly awry, eventually costing four agents and six Branch Davidians their lives and leaving twenty agents and four Branch Davidians wounded. In the aftermath of the bungled raid, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took control of the scene, described it as a “complex Hostage/Barricade rescue situation,” and conducted negotiations about the terms of their exit with the increasingly isolated Branch Davidians over the course of a fifty-one day siege. Negotiations, and virtually the entire Mount Carmel community, came to an end, however, on April 19, 1993, when government agents in modified tanks began punching holes in the flimsily constructed main building of the Mount Carmel Center, ostensibly so that those inside would be forced to exit. Instead, a fire, whose origins remain disputed to this day,2 broke out and eventually claimed the lives of most of the inhabitants of the Center. Only nine people survived. In the course of fifty-one days a previously obscure offshoot of the ­Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church became the dominant public representation of a “destructive cult,” its leader, David Koresh, became derisively known as the “wacko from Waco,” and its interpretive discourse about the Bible and

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particularly the Book of Revelation was reduced in the perceptions of the FBI negotiators to “Bible babble.”3 Although by 1993, the group that accepted David Koresh as its teacher and its various predecessors had been in the Waco area for nearly sixty years and had enjoyed generally cordial relations with both neighbors and local law enforcement, the Branch Davidians were quickly assimilated to the dominant public image of a dangerous cult with a deranged leader, hoodwinked followers, and malevolent intent. Up until the BATF raid, the controversies that animated the Branch Davidians were primarily theological and internal to the worldview and organization of the SDA Church, but their assimilation into the predominant cult stereotypes marked them not only as dangerous to themselves but also to the rest of society. Public fears about cults had been decisively shaped by the tragic end of the Peoples Temple in the November 1978 mass suicide-murder at its agricultural mission in Jonestown, Guyana. “Jonestown” cemented into the public perception of cults the expectation that they all would eventually lead to the suicide or murder of their members. The image of the Branch Davidians that emerged during the siege in the popular press and on TV shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show traded on that stereotype in multiple ways. Much of the early coverage of the siege at Mount Carmel was influenced by the Waco Tribune Herald’s damning series of articles entitled “The Sinful Messiah.”4 The negative tenor of ­coverage was extended after April 19, 1993, in journalistic books like Mad Man in Waco, Inside the Cult, and Massacre at Waco.5 Simply focusing on the siege and its deadly denouement, however, produces a skewed image of the Branch D ­ avidians that offers neither historical context nor a full account of their ­religious lives.

Context: From Davidians to Branch Davidians In 1993 the Branch Davidians under David Koresh were the latest development in a complex sectarian history. Their proximate origins can be traced back to Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant to the United States who joined the SDA Church in 1919.6 In the 1920s, Houteff became convinced that through his own study he had developed a superior understanding of the millennialist doctrine of the Adventist movement. In particular, he argued that the SDA Church itself was hopelessly complacent and subject to “worldly” influences and therefore could not represent the 144,000 who, according to Revelation 7, would be saved at the return of Christ. He expressed the profoundly sectarian belief that the SDA Church stood in urgent need of purification. As frequently happens with such challenges, the governing body of the SDA Church did not see things Houteff’s way. In 1934 his teachings were



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formally rejected and he was excommunicated. Unwilling to change his beliefs, Houteff set about forming a new organization, known first informally as “The Shepherd’s Rod” after the title of his first publication and incorporated in 1943 as “the General Association of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists.” For Houteff and his followers, the term “Davidian” was of crucial importance, since it signaled their expectation that they would set up a new messianic Davidic kingdom in Israel in anticipation of the return of Christ. In 1935 Houteff relocated with his followers to a large tract of land outside Waco, Texas, on which they established the Mount Carmel Center. Although the Davidians and Branch Davidians would move around a bit, they maintained their headquarters in the Waco area. Under Houteff, the small band of Davidians worked at developing the community at the Mount Carmel Center and spreading their message of reform to members of the SDA Church throughout North America and in other English-speaking countries. Although the physical effort it took to construct, renovate, and maintain the buildings that constituted the Mount Carmel Center should not be underestimated, the Davidians’ eyes remained firmly fixed on the biblical promises, articulated most forcefully in the Book of Revelation, that Christ would soon return to set up “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1). Houteff ’s interpretations of the Bible were expressed in a style that would also be adopted by his successors in the Davidian and Branch Davidian movements. They all viewed the Bible as a single, coherent whole in which any single passage could be used to clarify the meaning of another; interpretation therefore often took the form of constructing mosaics of biblical passages which were presented as almost entirely self-interpreting. In particular, the often obscure and enigmatic prophecies of the Book of Revelation occupied the Davidians’ attention. As David Koresh would put it in his unfinished manuscript that survived the April 19 fire: “The servant of God will find as we continue in our searching of the scriptures that every book of the Bible meets and ends in the Book of Revelation.”7 Houteff led the Davidians until he died in February 1955. The still small group of sectarian Adventists then faced a challenge with which all first-­ generation groups have to cope, establishing leadership for the second generation and beyond. Kenneth Newport reports that some of the members who were personally devoted to Houteff left the group when he died and several of those remaining contended for leadership.8 Claiming that on his deathbed her husband had urged her to succeed him, Florence Houteff eventually emerged as the primary contender and had her leadership formally recognized by the Executive Council of the Davidian Association.

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The most notable event of Florence’s tenure at the head of the Davidians was her proclamation that the events of the final judgment would begin to unfold at the end of the Passover season, on April 22, 1959. She urged the Davidians who were not in residence at Mount Carmel to assemble there for Passover and some 1,000 did. Florence’s setting of a date recalls William Miller’s efforts in the nineteenth century to establish that the return of Christ would happen, first, sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844, and then on October 22, 1844. When Miller’s prophecies failed, his followers experienced what came to be called “the Great Disappointment.” The SDA Church eventually developed among a group of Miller’s disappointed followers. Florence’s prophecies, it turned out, were no more successful than ­Miller’s. The failure of the events of the end to transpire nearly destroyed the Davidians. Those who remained adopted various strategies in response. Some argued that the prophecy failed because the Davidians had limited their proselytization only to members of the SDA Church and that they must now direct their message to a broader audience. Others split off to form a separate body of Davidian Adventists that is now headquartered in South Carolina. Florence herself retreated from leadership and left Mount Carmel. Although it took some time for the succession to be sorted out, Ben Roden eventually emerged as the next leader of the Davidians.9 Roden had become familiar with Victor Houteff’s teachings in the mid-1940s and he and his wife visited Mount Carmel around 1945. When Victor died, Roden made an unsuccessful attempt to succeed him. Roden justified his claim to leadership on charismatic grounds. Building on texts like Isaiah 11:1, Zechariah 3:8 and 6:12, and John 15:1–3, which all use similar imagery, he saw himself as “The Branch,” the individual chosen to continue the work begun by Houteff. It was under Ben Roden that the Davidian sectarian group founded by Victor Houteff became the Branch Davidians. The change in name signals a change of theological emphasis, particularly in the understanding of leadership, but should not obscure the substantial continuities between Houteff’s theology and Roden’s. Like Houteff, Roden saw the establishment of a literal kingdom of God in Israel as a central part of the end-times scenario. One of Roden’s distinctive emphases, however, was that the Mount Carmel community should observe the various festivals of ancient Israel, including Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The observation of Passover at Mount Carmel played an important role in the negotiations during the siege when FBI negotiators believed that David Koresh was stalling when he insisted on observing the full eight-day festival. Ben Roden, like all the Adventists before him, did not live to see his fond hope to experience the Last Judgment fulfilled. But in comparison to the



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succession crises that attended Victor Houteff’s death and Florence Houteff’s failed prophecy and abdication, Ben Roden’s death was followed by a relatively smooth transition. Even before his death in 1978, Ben’s wife Lois had begun to receive revelations. Although the Rodens’ son George had disputed his mother’s charismatically based claim to leadership on the more traditional grounds that his father had at least implicitly appointed him his successor, Lois easily secured leadership. George, however, would remain persistent in his pursuit of leadership and he later played an increasingly bizarre role in trying to prevent the ascendancy of David Koresh. In 1987, for example, he issued a challenge to Koresh to raise from the dead the body of a long-dead member of the community. When Koresh and some of his confederates tried to secure evidence of George’s strange behavior at the Mount Carmel Center, a forty-five minute gun battle ensued. In their 1988 trial for attempted murder, all of Koresh’s companions were found not guilty, the jury split on Koresh’s guilt and the judge declared a mistrial.10 Lois Roden grounded her theological innovations on her claim to revelatory experience.11 Most striking among her teachings was the assertion that the Holy Spirit was feminine. Beginning in 1980, Lois publicized her theological ideas in SHEkinah magazine, always emphasizing the first three letters of its title. Emulating the style of biblical interpretation favored by Davidians and Branch Davidians, Lois combed through news stories and magazine articles for items that supported her contention about the feminine nature of the Holy Spirit or at least chronicled the growing feminist interest in gender equality in religion and published them with little commentary in her own magazine. Like her predecessors, Lois was also a dedicated missionary, making trips throughout the United States and to Canada, Israel, and the Philippines. Lois also saw her own work as the last stage in the reformation of the SDA Church and as necessary preparation for the imminent return of Christ. Lois was at the helm of the Mount Carmel community when a highschool dropout then named Vernon Howell began to visit. Like most of the residents of Mount Carmel, Howell had been a Seventhday Adventist. But like Victor Houteff, he had been “disfellowshipped,” in part because of his claim to have received revelations from God.12 Despite his limited formal education and apparent learning disability, Howell knew the Bible very well. Impressed with his knowledge and dedication, Lois Roden took him under her wing and by 1983 was treating him as her potential successor, despite the continued opposition of her son George. Howell both learned from Lois through her own Bible studies and began to develop his own distinctive theology, as had the Houteffs and Rodens before him. A crucial turning point for Howell came during a visit to Israel in 1985. Although he never really

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spells out in any detail what he believes to have happened, it appears that Howell had a profound visionary experience, probably in the form of an ascent into the heavens. As he put it on March 7, 1993, to one of the FBI negotiators during the siege, “In 1985, I was taken, when I was in Israel . . . I was taken, in my perceptions of my being, to a place where I was shown all things pertaining to the seals.”13 Clive Doyle, one of the survivors of the April 19 fire, provides corroboration. Apparently after his visionary experience Howell no longer needed to study the Bible to apprehend its meaning; it simply and literally unfolded before his eyes. Doyle remembers that sometimes during Koresh’s Bible Studies “People would ask him: ‘Can you slow down? You’re going too fast.’ David answered: ‘I’m telling it to you as I’m watching it.’ It was like he was watching a movie. He said: ‘if I slow it down then the events in this scene, this vision, will get ahead of me.’”14 Howell, of course, was far from the first to have claimed such an experience. The Qur’an provides a tantalizingly brief account of the prophet Muhammad’s “Night Journey” in sura 17:1 that later Islamic texts elaborate into a full-blown ascent into the heavens in which Muhammad encounters and receives the blessings of his predecessor prophets and returns to earth to deliver Allah’s requirement that Muslims pray five times a day. Similarly, 2 Corinthians 12 recounts in tortured syntax an ascent experience that most likely refers to the apostle Paul himself. The text relates how “a man in Christ” ascended into the third heaven and from there into Paradise where “he heard things that are not to be told” (2 Cor. 12:4 NRSV). In both instances, the story about an ascent functions to solidify and extend the subject’s claim to authority. So it was with Howell. Whatever the details of his Jerusalem experience, Howell returned from Israel a changed man with an expansive and exalted sense of his own mission.15 Howell came to see himself not only as a gifted interpreter of the Bible, but as a central character in its unfolding drama of the end times. In fact, when he opened up his Bible, he now saw something there that no one before him ever had: himself. Among the several biblical characters with whom he identified, most of them in the Book of Revelation, Howell became convinced that he was the Lamb mentioned in Revelation 5 as being the only one who is capable of unsealing the heavenly scroll sealed with seven seals. Not only could he open up the scroll, but as he opened it, the events it foretold would take place. In his self-understanding and his teaching career, Howell thus continued the Adventist fascination with calibrating the precise time of the end, its diligent efforts to unlock the mysteries of the Book of Revelation, and its expectation that it was always possible that a living prophet could deliver “new light” or “present truth.”16



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When Vernon Howell officially changed his name to David Koresh in 1990, his new name was dense with symbolic meaning. His new first name hearkened back to Victor Houteff’s emphasis on the need to establish a new messianic kingdom in Israel, like the ancient kingdom of David, in anticipation of the end of days. His choice of a new last name was packed with even greater significance. In Isaiah 45, Cyrus, the king of Persia who conquered the ancient kingdom of Babylon in 539 b.c.e. and granted the Jews who had been held captive there since 586 b.c.e. the right to return home, is hailed as an “anointed one” or “messiah.” Koresh’s outsized goal was to position himself as the messianic successor of both the first king of ancient Israel and of the liberator of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity. Although some of Koresh’s predecessors in the Davidians and Branch Davidians had cast themselves as prophetic figures none of them had reached as far for such personal significance in God’s plans. Koresh’s claims for himself would have been empty, however, if no one else ever recognized and acted upon them. But, largely through his own teaching about the Bible, which he not only gave in person at the Mount Carmel Center and at various locales when he took his own missionary journeys but also taped and distributed to a growing mailing list of Seven-day Adventists, he managed to persuade at least some hundreds of people that he could deliver unprecedented insight into the scriptures. Once he became a full-time member of the Mount Carmel Community and eventually replaced Lois Roden as its central teacher, the interpretation of the millennialist message of the Christian scriptures became his sole focus. That relentless dedication to uncovering the Bible’s full meaning helps to explain some of the missed communication during the negotiations. Where the FBI negotiators relied on standard procedures designed to reattach barricaded hostages to their previous lives, all Koresh really cared about was explaining to them his interpretation of the seven seals. What they quickly saw as Bible babble, he saw as his life’s mission. The history of the Davidian and Branch Davidian movements shows that David Koresh emerged from a very specific kind of religious culture and tradition. Like their parent group, the Davidians and Branch Davidians were steeped in the scriptures, dedicated to deciphering them fully, avid for the guidance of anyone who could credibly be seen as providing “present truth,” and eagerly awaiting the return of Christ to conduct the Last Judgment. The simple dismissal of Koresh as a deranged cult leader, or the wacko from Waco, misses the depth and richness of the religious tradition that nurtured him. Whatever his own psychological state, Koresh’s teaching was in significant continuity with a series of teachers before him that reaches back to Ellen G. White, the founding

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prophet of the SDA Church, and beyond her to William Miller and his fervent if ultimately disappointed followers in the mid-nineteenth century. If Koresh could simply be described as a “Mad Man in Waco,” then they, too, partook of his madness. Similarly, if the residents of the Mount Carmel Center at the time of the raid and siege in 1993 are easily dismissed as being deluded by Koresh’s chicanery, then they shared their fantasies with millennialist believers in the broad Adventist tradition as well as many other millennialists throughout Christian history. The application of the very simplified “cult” stereotype to the Branch Davidians during the time of the siege, the very thing that made them so controversial to the public at large, actually did much more to obscure who they really were, what they cared about, and how and why they lived their lives as they did.

Religious Life at the Mount Carmel Center The FBI negotiators’ blanket dismissal of David Koresh’s teaching as Bible babble and the general cult stereotype that dominated news coverage of the siege at the Mount Carmel Center combined to produce an image of Koresh as a mentally unstable and manipulative leader who browbeat his followers into joylessly listening to his incomprehensible ranting about the seven seals when he was not exploiting them sexually or training them for the war to take place at Armageddon. Testimony from surviving Branch Davidians, however, tells a rather different story. It is clear that Koresh’s Bible studies were the focal point for life at Mount Carmel. Catherine Matteson was a long-term member of the Branch Davidians who had served as Lois Roden’s personal secretary well before the young Vernon Howell arrived at Mount Carmel. In an interview with James Tabor in 1994, she recalled that many members of the Mount Carmel community were hesitant to go into town on errands lest they miss whatever Koresh might be teaching that day. She acknowledged that some marathon Bible studies could stretch throughout the entire day but asserted that “It was never a bore.”17 In his autobiography, Clive Doyle reinforces Matteson’s statement. He recalls that “a lot of times my mother would be asked to take care of the children or do some job during a Bible study. She’d tell David: I don’t want to miss something.”18 Similarly, during the negotiations Steve Schneider, who worked very closely with Koresh, said of his fellow Branch Davidians, “the reason they came here, all that they are and what they want to be revolves around what they see him [Koresh] showing from that book.”19 Also, Livingstone Fagan, who left Mount Carmel during the siege to serve as a public spokesperson for the group and who later wrote a series of publications explaining Koresh’s



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theology, remembers being deeply impressed when he heard Koresh give a Bible study in England. He reports that “during that short time, I had perceived more significant biblical truths than I had done, the entire eight years I had been involved with organized religion.”20 Fagan effectively sums up the attitude of those who had gathered at Mount Carmel in order to learn from Koresh: “Mt. Carmel was a place where David Koresh opened the Seven Seals.”21 For Koresh, like his predecessors as leaders of the Davidians or Branch Davidians, his function as a religious teacher was paramount. But he also saw himself as playing another role in the coming kingdom. In the summer of 1989 Koresh communicated to the group a troubling revelation of “New Light.” He informed the community that those who were married would have to separate from their spouses and adopt a celibate way of life. In addition, he proclaimed that his own children, both present and future, would become the elders mentioned in Revelation 4:4 and 5:10 as the priests and kings who would rule over the coming kingdom.22 In effect, Koresh was creating a situation in which he had a sexual monopoly over all the women in the group, even those under the age of consent. His exploitation of that monopoly created tension within the group and for the general public became one of the most prominent marks of the illegitimacy of his leadership and a sign of his true motives. As was customary for him, Koresh delivered his “New Light” revelation in the context of a Bible study. Marc Breault recalls that Koresh claimed that “as the Lamb of God he was entitled to have all the women and girls sexually. Only he had the right to procreate.”23 For Breault, that new revelation proved unacceptable; he simply could not understand how Koresh could use the Bible to justify his sexual behavior. As Breault recalls in the expose he later wrote with Australian TV reporter Martin King, he thought “I’m seriously beginning to doubt whether God has ever talked to this guy.”24 Consequently, he left the group with his wife, Elizabeth Baranyai, and returned to his native Australia. Because he felt so strongly that Koresh had erred in both his reading of the Bible and his personal behavior, Breault became not just a disappointed former member of the Branch Davidians but also their dedicated adversary. Through multiple conversations with US government officials Breault reinforced the BATF’s resolution to conduct its “dynamic entry” at the Mount Carmel Center and contributed decisively to the government’s and (through his memoir) the general public’s understanding of the Branch Davidians as a dangerous cult with aberrant sexual mores. The practices that Koresh initiated in conformity with his “New Light” revelation did more than anything else to stigmatize the group. They,

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much more than the alleged firearms infractions, deserved sustained scrutiny and appropriate action from the a­ uthorities. In fact, the suspicions about firearms violations at the Mount Carmel Center that sparked the BATF raid could have been dealt with rather simply. The specific charges concerned the Branch Davidians’ possession of illegal materials and the possible conversions of semiautomatic AR-15 rifles to fully automatic machine guns. Evidence introduced at the 1994 trial of eleven Branch Davidians indicates that the community did possess weapons that had been converted to fully automatic. But the law specifies that the infraction is failing to register them in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record and pay the appropriate fees.25 Whether the response of the BATF was commensurate with infractions that could have been taken care of by filling out the necessary paperwork is certainly open to question. But, as agent Aguilera’s probable cause affidavit shows, the Mount Carmel community became a magnet for a wide variety of charges that had nothing to do with firearms violations. Betraying the influence of Breault’s blanket portrayal of the group as a dangerous cult, the BATF’s rationale for its raid went well beyond technical matters concerning the conversion of semiautomatic weapons. There were other aspects to the Branch Davidians’ collection of weapons as well. Surviving members of the community have disputed the assertion that Mount Carmel was essentially an armed camp, spoiling for a fight. Clive Doyle, for example, notes how reselling guns, MREs (meals ready to eat), ammunition vests sewn by female members of the community, and other paraphernalia provided essential income for the support of the community.26 The survivors are united in claiming that the gun business was only the concern of a few people within the community and that many of the Branch Davidians had nothing to do with it. There was, however, an additional dimension to the presence of guns at Mount Carmel. It is clear that Koresh expected his group to play a crucial role in the events at the end of time. Since Victor Houteff, Davidians and Branch Davidians had expected the final scenario to play out in the land of Israel. They were particularly attuned to the significance of Armageddon, mentioned in Revelation 16:16, as the site for a climactic battle between the forces loyal to God, among whom the Branch Davidians definitely counted themselves, and their evil enemies. But especially if the guns had been amassed to arm those who would participate in that ultimate battle, the initial BATF would have come as quite a surprise since the battle was supposed to take place in Israel and not outside of Waco, Texas. An overview of life at the Mount Carmel Center clearly shows how the experience of the Branch Davidians did not align with the stereotypical image of a cult that was imposed upon them by government agents, bitter defectors,



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and a credulous general public. Those living at Mount Carmel did not see David Koresh as a deranged and manipulative cult leader who was exploiting them for his own benefit. Instead they accepted him as an inspiring teacher whose expositions of the Bible they eagerly sought and never wanted to miss. Many of them had difficulty understanding and accepting the implications of his “New Light” revelation, but those who stayed acknowledged, sometimes grudgingly, that he was serving a higher purpose. The community was united in affirming that whatever guns it possessed were part of a business that provided a helpful source of income, even as at least some of them anticipated being called to fight on God’s behalf at the battle of Armageddon. The community was therefore more complex and diverse than the simple negative characterizations of it that dominated the press coverage during the siege.

Conclusion New religious movements are destined to be controversial in two distinct ways. On the one hand, they necessarily constitute a critique of all established religions. By leveling their criticisms they create a rationale for why people should abandon their current religious affiliations, or lack thereof, in order to pursue new possibilities. In the case of sectarian groups like the Davidians and Branch Davidians, their critique primarily has a narrow and specific target. Their parent body is portrayed as having woefully and unfortunately lost its way. As Victor Houteff put it, the SDA Church had become complacent and succumbed to worldly influences. That critique instigated controversy within the SDA Church and the ensuing conflict led to Houteff’s ouster and his formation of a competing religious group. Sectarian movements intentionally create inner-group controversy and come into being when their critiques are rebuffed by the groups they are trying to reform. New religions’ indictment of the status quo can also spill over into a wider critique. Not only a parent religious body but an entire society can come under criticism. Such criticism can be leveled either directly or more implicitly. The leaders of the Davidians and Branch Davidians were certainly convinced that the entire world was wayward and in need of correction, even though they continually focused their evangelization efforts on members of the SDA Church. But there were also multiple elements of the life of the Branch Davidians that implicitly challenged the status quo as well. Their communal living situation and their willingness to live in substandard housing on meager income certainly did not accord well with the American dreams of home ownership and stable, lucrative careers. Even more, the enforced celibacy and mandatory polygamy that issued from Koresh’s “New Light” teaching directly

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clashed with dominant American ideas of sexual morality. By being determinedly different, the Branch Davidians courted controversy with the broader social context in which they existed. It is difficult, then, for new religious movements that extensively mobilize their membership to avoid controversy, either with other religious groups with which they are at least implicitly competing for members or with their general social environment.27 The challenge for new religions, then, becomes not how to avoid controversy but how to manage it. The same holds for the opponents of new religions, be they former members, aggrieved parents, inquisitive journalists, or government agents who, due to various factors, are called to action. The conflict at the Mount Carmel Center in 1993 shows how angry former members can broadcast their grievances and incite social action against their former co-religionists, how journalists are eager to believe the worst of new religions in their efforts to defend the status quo, and how government agencies can rely on partial, biased evidence and overreact to violations of the law that are more effectively handled by a fine than a heavilyarmed assault. It also shows how the intransigence of a group in insisting on preaching rather than negotiating can exacerbate a tense situation and close off possible avenues to resolution. The fluid character of situations of conflict requires a measure of flexibility on all sides if violent conclusions are to be avoided. Members of new religions and their cultural opponents need ­continually to be aware of that.

Notes 1. See James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher, Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 100–103; Kenneth G. C. Newport, The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Sect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 236–241. 2. On the causes of the fire, see the set of essays in Nova Religio: The Journal of Emergent and Alternative Religions 13(2009): 2–94. 3. See Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco, 117–130, 108–110, respectively. 4. On press coverage of the Branch Davidians, see James T. Richardson, “Manufacturing Consent about Koresh,” in Stuart A. Wright, ed., Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 153–176; Catherine Wessinger, “The Branch Davidians and Religion Reporting: A Ten-Year Retrospective,” in Kenneth G. C. Newport and Crawford Gribben, eds., Expecting the End: Millennialism in Social and Historical Context (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 147–172.



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5. Brad Bailey and Bob Darden, Mad Man in Waco: The Complete Story of the Davidian Cult, David Koresh and the Waco Massacre (Waco, TX: WRS Publishing, Co., 1993); Marc Breault, with Martin King, Inside the Cult: A Member’s Chilling, Exclusive Account of Madness and Depravity in David Koresh’s Compound (New York: Signet Books, 1993); Clifford L. Lindecker, Massacre at Waco: The Shocking True Story of Cult Leader David Koresh and the Branch Davidians (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993). 6. On Houteff, see Newport, The Branch Davidians, 47–75. For Houteff’s writings, see http://www.shepherds-rod.org/index.html. 7. David Koresh, “The Seven Seals of the Book of Revelation,” in Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco, 191–203, quotation from 197. 8. Newport, The Branch Davidians, 95–97. 9. On Ben Roden, see Newport, The Branch Davidians, 115–154. For Ben Roden’s writings, see http://www.the-branch.org/index.php. 10. See Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco, 41–43. 11. On Lois Roden, see Newport, The Branch Davidians, 155–170. For Lois’s writings, see http://www.the-branch.org/index.php. 12. See Newport, The Branch Davidians, 176–177. 13. Negotiation tape 81, March 7, 1993, 29–30. Copies of the transcripts of the negotiation tapes are in my possession and the tapes are available from the FBI reading room at http://www.fbi.gov/foia/. 14. Clive Doyle, with Catherine Wessinger and Matthew Whitmer, A Journey to Waco: Autobiography of a Branch Davidian (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), 73. 15. See Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco, 58–59. 16. On the concept of “present truth” in the Adventist tradition and among the Branch Davidians, see Eugene V. Gallagher, “Present Truth and Theological Revisionism among the Branch Davidians,” in Eileen Barker, ed., Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements (London: Ashgate, 2013), 115–126. 17. Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco, 31. 18. Doyle, A Journey to Waco, 73. 19. Negotiation tape 129, March 15, 1993, 43. 20. Livingstone Fagan, Mt. Carmel: The Unseen Reality, 1:5. Copy in my possession. Fagan’s writings are now part of the Branch Davidian collection, originally assembled by Mark Swett, at Baylor University; see http://www.baylor.edu/­ content/services/document.php/148854.pdf. Copies of Mt. Carmel: The Unseen Reality can be also found on the Internet; see, for example, http://dagmar.­ lunarpages.com/~parasc2/articles/1296/faganful.htm. 21. Ibid., 1:15. 22. See Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco, 74–75. Clive Doyle attests to the difficulty he had in understanding the theological underpinnings of this idea in Doyle, A Journey to Waco, 87.

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23. As quoted in ibid., 86. 24. Breault, Inside the Cult, 195. 25. See Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco, 100–101. 26. See Doyle, A Journey to Waco, 108. 27. On mobilization of membership as a characteristic of “cult movements” and its connections to the social environment see Rodney Stark & William Sims Bainbridge, The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 35.

5

Charismatic Controversies in the Jesus People, Calvary Chapel, and Vineyard Movements Jane Skjoldli

in one century, Pentecostalism has gained over 500 million members and become the fastest growing form of Christianity (Anderson et al. 2010: 1; Pew Forum 2010a). The number embraces classical Pentecostals, charismatics, and neo-charismatics alike. In The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Philip Jenkins has suggested that Pentecostalism, applied broadly, may be “the most successful social movement of the twentieth century” (2007: 9). It is a global, multifaceted, and diverse movement which, in addition to sprouting distinct Pentecostal churches, has influenced some established denominations to the point where they have incorporated charismatic worship styles and practices (Beyer 2007: 134). Definitions and terminology regarding “Pentecostal” and “neo-Pentecostal,” “charismatic” and “neo-charismatic” continue to be debated and deserve more attention than is possible in this chapter. Suffice to say that Pentecostalism is understood as a movement “concerned primarily with the experience of the working of the Holy Spirit and the practice of spiritual gifts” (Anderson 2004: 14, emphasis in original). This phenomenon has drawn much scholarly attention, but a critique has been leveled that charismatic practices have not received due attention by scholars who study new religious movements (NRMs)—that such scholars have been more concerned with “exotic” and “controversial” phenomena (Römer 2002: 45). This chapter aims to show that charismatic movements can be controversial enough on their own—even without being classified as NRMs—by tracing the development of charismatic practices within the Jesus People, Calvary

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Chapel, and Vineyard movements. Central questions are: How did the controversies arise? How did they affect the movements and their central figures? What can these events teach us about charismatic practices as an emic category?

Charismatic and Charisma(ta) George L. Scheper begins The Encyclopedia of Religion’s entry on “Charisma” by referring to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In chapter 12, the author provides a “list” of charismata (plural of charisma—“spiritual gift”) and explains that these practices are given by the Holy Spirit to the individual Christian and should be used for the good of the community: speaking in tongues (glossolalia), their interpretation, various forms of prophecy and healing, discernment between demonic and divine spirits, wonders, and a special form of faith. Scheper explains that the definition of charisma has expanded in the course of the last century, discussing Max Weber’s use of the term in analyses of religious and political leaders’ ability to generate authority and popularity (2005: 1543–1545). Scheper’s article pays less attention to the term’s flexibility on the emic level. He mentions the expanded category in Catholicism, where ecclesial tradition remains normatively authoritative in matters of faith and morals.1 The article does not acknowledge the expansion of the category among Pentecostals, whose evangelical heritage tends to emphasize the Lutheran principle of the Bible as the single spiritual and moral authority. On the terminological level, Pentecostal expansion of charismatic practices is visible in discourse concerning not only the Holy Spirit’s gifts, but also manifestations: a category of bodily events interpreted as the Holy Spirit’s presence in the subject’s body (e.g., Miller 1997: 160; Römer 2002: 102–104).

Background The Jesus People, Calvary Chapel, and Vineyard movements came out of the Fourth Great Awakening, or the Charismatic Renewal, that started in the 1960s.2 The movements have grown rapidly and controversies have followed them from the beginning. That charismatic manifestations took place in apostolic times is generally acknowledged. More questions arise in encounters with contemporary practice. While normatively acknowledged in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, some groups hold that authentic charismata are no longer distributed. The



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stance is called cessationism and hails from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who held that the gifts ceased in the early church. Admittedly, evidence of charismatic practices in Europe from late antiquity to the Enlightenment is scarce. There are some scattered reports that may indicate sporadic charismatic practices, but it is difficult to assess their significance.3 The situation changes with higher levels of literacy, the printing press, and the increasing circulation of information. There are reports that in the First Great Awakening, congregants would collapse around Jonathan Edwards: cry, groan, have visions, and shake dramatically. Similar reports come with the Second Great Awakening in the 1790s to 1820s and the sprouting of various denominations, and gains further momentum with the Third Great Awakening’s birth of Pentecostalism in the early twentieth century with the famous 1906 Azusa Street revival, led by William Seymour. The Los Angeles Daily Times described the event as a “weird babel of tongues” and a “new sect of fanatics breaking loose” (Luhrmann 2012: 25). For the next sixty years, Pentecostalism would grow but also remain a small and somewhat embarrassing oddity (ibid.). Charismatic practices may have been hidden away like some obnoxious child in the Victorian and post-Victorian eras, but their controversial nature might have helped them to appeal to the 1960s youth counterculture (Chancellor 2005: 19). Tanya M. Luhrmann characterizes glossolalia as the “spiritual equivalent of long hair and bare feet,” and “the very heart of the Jesus People movement” (Robert C. Palms, quoted in Luhrmann, 2012: 26).

The Jesus People In 1967 young people started flocking to San Francisco. They shared a quest for a “new way of being human” that would emphasize love, compassion, and brotherhood (Luhrmann 2012: 16, 18). Drugs featured heavily in their counterculture, but there were those who offered an alternative: Jesus. Christian coffeehouses offered deliverance from drug addiction. As a result, thousands of former hippies converted (Anderson 2004: 149). Christian hippies were different from the Christians in their Sunday best; they let their hair and beards grow and they dressed casually. Their music was blues and rock-inspired and they sang to Jesus, emphasizing his unconditional love, and they found role models in the early disciples as social and spiritual revolutionaries rather than theologians. By 1971, Christian hippies were called “Jesus Freaks” by outsiders and “Jesus People” by insiders. They acquired a social mythology of their own

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(Luhrmann 2012: 19). A few years later the movement had spread across the United States and counted 300,000 young people (Anderson 2004: 149). One of the movement’s most important preachers was Lonnie Frisbee. Frisbee had believed in flying saucers, tried marijuana, LSD, and metaphysical meditation, and now the time had come for Jesus. He even had a look that made him resemble Warner Sallmann’s already popular depictions of Christ: Luhrmann describes him as “[lean] and handsome, with big brown eyes, curly dark shoulder-length hair, and a beard” (2012: 17). One day Frisbee had a vision that he compared to an acid trip—except, he held, it lasted and changed his life. In the vision, God told Frisbee that the purpose of his life would be to “bring a sea of people to Christ” (Luhrmann, 2012: 17) Acting on the vision, Frisbee preached his way southward along the beaches from San Francisco to Los Angeles. There, a group of evangelists found him preaching on the street—while high on LSD. The evangelists took him to The Living Room, one of the aforementioned Christian coffeehouses. He then joined the Big House, or House of Acts, an early Christian commune where people tried to live according to the Book of Acts’ description of the early disciples’ lives: sharing food, possessions, and Bible studies. Frisbee also appears to have quit taking drugs and started baptizing his friends in the Holy Spirit: “[Lonnie] said,” one man remembered, “‘Well, have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit?’ I go, ‘I don’t think so. I don’t even know what that is.’ He said, ‘Well, let me tell you more about it . . .’ I felt the spirit of God come down upon me in such a powerful way, and Lonnie was kind of encouraging me to start speaking in this—this unknown prayer language.” (Luhrmann 2012: 18) The Holy Spirit seemed to be present whenever Frisbee asked, “[flowing] through him as if he were a faucet. ‘When the anointing hit,’ someone related, ‘it was like walking with an apostle’” (Luhrmann 2012: 27).4 Frisbee seemed to make the distant glory days of the early church present once more. This kind of Christianity struck a chord with the hippies; they were at best bored with institutional, established Christianity, but the person Jesus, “the radical rebel who loved,” seemed to catch the interest of many.5 Disembedding Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and charismatic experiences from established denominations, the Jesus People managed to recast Jesus and his disciples as ancient proto-hippies (Luhrmann 2012: 18–19). They were not the only ones who had grown weary of denominational boundaries.



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Calvary Chapel In his early years as pastor, Chuck Smith worked for the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel denomination, but he grew unhappy with what he saw as institutional Christianity’s power dynamics: people tended to become leaders by exploiting weaker individuals and eliminating whoever might threaten their power. Feeling led by the Holy Spirit to start a new church, Smith left to start Corona Christian Center (Miller 1997: 32). Corona grew quickly, but Smith believed God was calling him to lead another church, Calvary Chapel, which was at the verge of disbanding. Perfectly aware that it was not “the smart thing to do”, in 1965 he handed Corona over to other leaders. As pastor of two dozen dispirited people, Smith had the congregation renovate the church interior and started radio broadcasting his Bible studies, which became popular and drew attention to the church. As the number of hippies on the beaches grew, evangelizing to them became important to Kay Smith, Chuck’s wife, but they did not know how to reach them (Smith, 2006 (1981): 6). An opportunity presented itself when the Smiths’ daughter started dating a former hippie (Anderson 1995: 174; Luhrmann 2012: 16; Smith 1981: 6). He told Smith he had witnessed two group conversions of hippies, both of whom had been high on drugs. As he had shared his message about Jesus, “the Spirit of God came on them, and all of them knelt in a circle . . . and accepted the Lord” (Smith 1981: 6). The Smiths were eager to meet a Christian hippie, so their daughter’s boyfriend brought to their door “a long-haired, bearded kid with bells on his feet and flowers in his hair”—it was Lonnie Frisbee (Smith 1981: 6; Luhrmann 2012: 27; cf. Miller 1997: 33). It was no small testimony Smith gave Frisbee when he wrote, “I wasn’t prepared for the love that came forth from this kid. His love for Jesus Christ was infectious. The annointing [sic] of the Spirit was upon his life” (Smith 1981: 6). The alliance with Frisbee gave Smith plenty of opportunities to reach the hippies. They shared a suspicion of established, organized religion, believed in the importance of Bible-centered teaching, and in the need for an approach that would draw the youth. Services were made casual, Smith provided Bible teaching, and Frisbee practiced his anointing. Hippie bands brought a casual style and a new genre of Christian music that would resonate with what Donald Miller called “new paradigm Christianity” (1997: 1–3). The social threshold was lowered significantly. Calvary Chapel was starting to look like Smith’s ideal church: “dynamic, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit,” and the church appealed to the youth his wife’s burden had inspired him to reach. It grew rapidly.

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Not everyone welcomed the changes. Older members, who preferred their newly installed carpet undefiled by bare feet, and who may have found Christianized blues and rock music objectionable, hung up a sign that read “No bare feet allowed.” Provoked by their priorities, Smith reprimanded the board and threatened to “tear out the carpet” (Luhrmann 2012: 27). Appearing together on the television show I Believe in Miracles,6 Frisbee joyously confronted anti-hippie prejudice and proclaimed that “God is blowing everybody’s mind because he’s saving the hippies . . . and nobody thought the hippies could be saved” (Scott87508 2010). Smith continued to teach on Sundays. Frisbee preached on Wednesday evenings, dressed in hippie outfits, and “the doors blew open” (congregant quoted in Luhrmann 2012: 27). Together, the two started a Christian commune along the lines of the Big House where Frisbee had lived. They called it the “House of Miracles.” Recently converted hippies would stay there for a week or two, before having to find a new place to live due to the all the new converts that needed accommodation (Smith 1981: 6). Following the rapid expansion and the acquisition of a permanent building in 1974, Smith started training young converts to plant Calvary Chapels in neighboring cities. In only a few years the churches included 25,000 people—mainly youth. The Calvary Chapel movement had been born (Anderson 2004: 149; Miller 1997: 33–34).

The First Controversy: Falling in the Spirit Embracing Frisbee as a preacher meant equipping Calvary Chapel’s services with his contagious anointing. One Calvary Chapel pastor who had come out of drug addiction told Miller and company about a service he had attended where Frisbee taught baptism in the Holy Spirit. Frisbee’s appearance caught his attention: I said, “Well, I’ve got Jesus, I guess I need this [baptism in the Holy Spirit . . . ]” So I went up there, and they brought me in this little room and prayed for me. I’ll never forget it. Lonnie lays his hands on me. I went right down. I just fell on the ground. I started crying and laughing at the same time—had an incredible emotional experience. . . . I was really emotionally out of control, but I was loving it. It was like a deliverance. (Quoted in Miller, 1997: 94) Speaking of what he interpreted as an encounter with God, the pastor remarked: “That was a real, I would say, pivotal point in my whole life, with the



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baptism of the Holy Spirit. . . . I was on fire from then on out. It hasn’t stopped” (94).7 The pastor explained that his experience took place in a little room. At that point, efforts were made to contain charismatic practices and keep them under control. Charismatic practices typically happen in groups where individuals function as conduits, or even “tubes” for the Holy Spirit (e.g., Luhrmann 2012: 50, 258). Certain individuals are thought to have a fuller anointing than others, as if their bodies ooze with contagious, living electricity. Smith welcomed the church service reform. He also initially encouraged the experiential aspect of Frisbee’s baptisms and recognized its influence on church growth. Nonetheless, Smith started having second thoughts. According to Miller, the pastor who related the above testimony confessed that Smith had asked that the “falling down emotional stuff ” stop and they return to focusing on Bible teaching. To Smith the resemblance to drug-induced experiences was too clear; he did not want “people to come for the intense experience for its own sake, as if it were a drug” (Luhrmann 2012: 29). According to Luhrmann, Smith also feared his God being ridiculed due to memories from his youth when his friends would laugh at people speaking in tongues (29). Another point that may be worth recalling is Smith’s critical view of the power dynamics in the Foursquare Gospel, where charismata were practiced. If people came for the sake of emotional experiences, and Frisbee was the goto-person for those experiences, it was possible if not highly likely that considerable religious power would crystallize with him at the center, leading to an authority centered on a human being. To an evangelist who emphasized gospel teaching from the Bible as much as Smith did, the thought of such a situation would seem spiritually dangerous. Either way, Smith eventually told Frisbee that he would have to leave if the falling continued when he prayed for them. As Luhrmann relates, people fell—Frisbee left (Luhrmann, 2012: 29). Frisbee was later allowed to return on the condition that the charismatic practices be kept under control, preferably displaced to afterglow meetings. Besides, he had to wear a suit, or at least jeans and a shirt. Frisbee accepted the terms and was made an assistant pastor. Afterglows were sometimes held after Sunday services, and sometimes rarer. Only converts were asked to attend afterglows, where the Holy Spirit was invited to manifest his presence (Miller 1997: 94–95). To Luhrmann and Miller, these efforts amounted to Max Weber’s routinization of charisma (Luhrmann 2012: 29; cf. Miller 2005). Thus, the movement’s first charismatic controversy died down, at least for a while.

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A Paradigm Shift John Wimber was a former jazz musician who became a Christian coming out of drug and alcohol abuse. In 1963 he joined a Quaker church, where he led a couple of house groups. Some group members spoke in tongues and one of the groups taught musical worship, which became “a way for people to lose themselves in God” (Luhrmann 2012: 30).8 Wimber’s Quaker church grew and in 1970 he was made co-pastor of what had become the denomination’s largest congregation. From 1974 to 1977, Wimber was a church growth consultant at the Fuller Theological Seminary, under C. Peter Wagner (Miller 1997: 48). Visiting 2,000 different churches of various denominations and hearing missionaries’ adventurous stories of church growth, miracles, and casting out demons in other parts of the world, Wimber’s views on the importance of charismatic practices changed (Jackson 2005: 133–134; Miller 1997: 48). It seemed to Wimber that charismatic practices were more than just experiences of an intense emotional connection with God; they were meant to equip Christians for a spiritual war for human souls against demonic forces headed by Satan. Wimber discussed the brewing “paradigm shift” in his worldview with Wagner, with whom he taught the “Signs and Wonders” course at Fuller (Anderson 2004: 158). Wagner’s thoughts on the matter had taken the same direction; it seemed to them that a secular, modernistic worldview had made them blind to an important dimension of Christian spirituality—and charismatic practices’ place in it (Anderson 2004: 198–199; Jackson 2005: 134; Luhrmann 2012: 254).9 On a Sunday in 1976, Wimber and a few other Quakers attended an afterglow at a house group where charismata were practiced, which Wimber later started to lead. Embracing charismatic practices, the group began to grow. His Quaker church, however, grew uncomfortable with the practices, and John and Carol Wimber were asked to leave (Luhrmann 2012: 30; Miller 1997: 48). On May 10, 1977, members from the house group gathered again, this time across the street from the Quaker church. With Wimber as pastor, worship would consist of the already tried-and-true mix of charismatic practices and culturally relevant worship music. This meant that the church fit the Calvary Chapel profile, where afterglows and reformed worship music were already in place. Wimber focused on “the Gospel story of this person, Jesus, and his supernatural encounters,” which must have seemed agreeable to Smith as well as the former hippies at Calvary Chapel. Smith and Wimber became friends and Wimber’s church was affiliated with Calvary Chapel. Wimber had learned the value of house groups and worked



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the structure into the organization. Smaller fellowships that were a part of the greater fellowship would meet weekly to study the Bible together, to share their troubles and testimonies (Luhrmann 2012: 30; cf. Miller 1997: 134–137).10

The Second Controversy: Healing and Exorcism If any charisma was particularly important to Wimber, it was healing. He began to pray for healing in his services, calling people with various illnesses to come forward and accept prayer on their behalf. For months, their prayers seemed in vain. Then, one morning in 1978, Wimber prayed for a woman with a high fever. To his and the woman’s husband’s surprise, she got well. Wimber “stumbled out the door, jubilation suddenly filled him and he shouted, ‘We got one!’” (Chandler 1990; Luhrmann 2012: 30). At a meeting in a new house group the following month, Wimber taught on “the filling of the Holy Spirit” and prayed for the congregants that they would be filled: “[John] felt spiritual power come out of his hands like electricity, and people fell over,” reported Carol Wimber (quoted in Luhrmann 2012: 31; cf. Römer 2002: 20). This was certainly a charismatic breakthrough for Wimber and his church, but the watershed happened two years later, literally by the hands of a familiar character—Lonnie Frisbee. By that time, Wimber’s church had seven hundred members. In his teachings and increasing emphasis on the charismata, Wimber had more in common with Frisbee than Chuck Smith. Frisbee, who may have seen an opportunity to unleash his anointing once again, started going to Wimber’s church to pray for people. On Mother’s Day in 1980, Frisbee gave his first Sunday-morning teaching at Wimber’s church. Frisbee shared his testimony of deliverance and invited young people to come forward. Wimber’s wife, Carol, described it: None of us had a clue as to what was going to happen next. When they got to the front the speaker said, “For years now the Holy Spirit has been grieved by the church, but he’s getting over it. Come, Holy Spirit.” And he came . . . One fellow, Tim, started bouncing. His arms flung out and he fell over, but one of his hands accidentally hit a mike stand and he took it down with him. He was tangled up in the cord with the mike next to his mouth. Then he began speaking in tongues, so the sound went throughout the gymnasium. (Carol Wimber, quoted in Luhrmann 2012: 31; cf. Römer 2002: 20)

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Carol Wimber also reported that previous occurrences like this had been few: “We had seen a few people tremble and fall over before and we had seen many healings, but this was different. The majority of young people were shaking and falling over. At one point it looked like a battlefield scene” (ibid.). A ­ ccording to Luhrmann, John Wimber was not immediately at ease with these manifestations. He spent the night searching the Bible and earlier revival preachers’ literature for answers. By morning, he had concluded that the phenomena were authentic experiences of God. Wimber was increasingly convinced by the idea of spiritual warfare and he started extending healing to deliverance from demonic influences. In one evening service a woman “slid off her chair, causing a loud commotion, engulfed in a classic hissing demonic manifestation” (Luhrmann 2012: 31). Her behavior was interpreted as caused by an “in-dwelling demon” and they performed exorcism on her.11 From that point, exorcism became part of the service. Interestingly, rather than scare people away, exorcism seemed to only increase the church’s popularity as “membership jumped to two thousand” (31–32). This was more like it. Events were starting to fit Wimber’s and Wagner’s paradigm shift for understanding charismatic practices:12 God and Satan were fighting in what Wimber calls “power encounters” and the individual person was their more or less powerless battlefield (Römer 2002: 20; cf. Lucas 1992: 199). Surely, all of this meant a return to first-century Christianity, the practices of Jesus and the early apostles that promised spiritual adventure to the beat of contemporary music. They were prayer warriors, heroes of the Holy Spirit, armed with the armor of God, fighting the devil and saving people in their own local church. At least, this was the way they taught from the New Testament scriptures, “not as texts of an ancient people, but as if the events had just happened” (Luhrmann 2012: 32).13 One Vineyard pastor told Miller and company that he practiced healing and exorcism because, despite his reported skepticism, he saw results, convincing him slowly but surely (Miller 1997: 132). Smith, however, was not convinced and had not changed his views. Luhrmann speculates if “the cringe at what Carol Wimber called ‘all the shakin’ going on” was the most important (2012: 32), but this is to ignore her later point that Christians who “accept that the Bible is true in all it affirms ought to believe that demons are real . . . [C]hurches that emphasize the holy spirit [sic] tend to take demons seriously,” even to the point of some pastors taking precautions with what situations they perform exorcism in, well aware of the practice’s potentially disturbing impact on newcomers (254, 256).14 For Smith, casting demons out of Christians was the final straw; immunity from possession was supposed to be one of the privileges of being saved.



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Already uneasy with the multiplication of Spirit manifestations that demanded increasing amounts of attention during services, exorcism appears to have been the deal-breaker for Smith and like-minded Calvary Chapel leaders. In 1982 all Calvary Chapel leaders were summoned to a meeting where it was made clear that “[Wimber’s] church’s emphasis on the experience of the Holy Spirit was not shared by some leaders in the Calvary Chapel movement” (VineyardUSA.org 2012b). Reports differ as to whether Wimber was asked to “change the affiliation of his church” or whether he made the suggestion himself, albeit under pressure (e.g., Luhrmann 2012: 33; Miller 1997: 49). What seems clear is that Smith advised Wimber to affiliate his church specifically with Kenn and Joanie Gulliksen’s Vineyard churches that had been founded in 1975. Gulliksen had been ordained pastor in Calvary Chapel in 1971 and had pastored a subgroup of churches in the movement called the Jesus Chapels (Miller 1997: 47). Smith noted similarities between his and Wimber’s understanding of and emphasis on charismatic practices (Luhrmann 2012: 33). Eight existing Vineyard fellowships joined with thirty Calvary Chapels and formed the Vineyard movement. Over the next few years, additional Calvary Chapels followed suit. According to Gulliksen, the pastors of the Calvary Chapels that became Vineyards were “hungry for more of the Holy Spirit in their own churches, in their own lives” (Miller 1997: 49). In more mundane terms, they liked focusing on charismatic practices. Gulliksen had started his Vineyard in 1975. As he planted more churches, the responsibility of overseeing them became overwhelming (Miller 1997: 49). In 1982, Gulliksen turned leadership of the Vineyard over to Wimber, but Gulliksen’s talent for church planting remained an important asset to the movement’s growth (Jackson 2005: 136; Miller 1997: 49; Römer 2002: 19). Another asset was Lonnie Frisbee, who joined the staff at Wimber’s church, now named the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim. According to Luhrmann, Frisbee’s friends describe it thus: When Lonnie called, the Holy Spirit came and drew believers to his church and others like moths to flame. “Lonnie would wave his leather coat [on which he had painted a figure of Jesus] and call on the power of God, and people would be falling all over these old pews of the Baptist church. Lonnie would crawl over the pews to pray for people. He’d say ‘speak in tongues, speak in tongues.’ Then he’d touch them on the forehead and they would instantly begin to speak in tongues.” (Luhrmann 2012: 33)

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It would seem that this time, Frisbee was free to minister the Holy Spirit’s anointing unbridled. In 1986, the Vineyard counted 136 churches and expected to be twice as many by the end of 1987 (Jackson 2005: 136). Such rapid expansion drew attention from critical voices, manifesting in books as well as a “moratorium on [Wimber’s] signs and wonders courses [at Fuller], claiming the ‘clinics’ belonged in the realm of the church, not the confines of an academic institution” (Jackson 2005: 136). The course was reopened a year later, albeit with a few changes such as “[urging] churchly caution when cures are claimed in spiritual healing sessions and when attempts are made to exorcise ‘demons’ allegedly possessing a person” (Dart 1987). Established denominations lost members to the Vineyard as they had lost members to Calvary before it. To some of these churches, this new form of Christianity was a threat, not only to their membership, but to the salvation of those who got involved. Deception, some said, might well be lurking, and while skeptical Christians pointed to the New Testament’s warnings of false prophets and counterfeit signs and wonders, those who practiced the charismata Frisbee-style defended their views likewise. Far from all commentators were critical: On October 5, 1990, a Los Angeles Times journalist wrote: “Wimber’s emphasis seems to reach . . . [y]ounger believers who want to wed an orthodox, Bible-believing faith with immediate and palpable spiritual power and emotional experience” (Chandler 1990). The emphasis on power became too strong for Gulliksen who left and started a new church.15 Other pastors joined the Vineyard because it was “culturally current,” “flexible,” spiritually experimental and willing to explore “new modes of worship that break with traditional models of mind-body separation” (Miller 1997: 51–52). As time would show, that flexibility also had its limits. When it was revealed that Lonnie Frisbee was homosexual and in a sixmonths-long relationship with a young congregant,16 Wimber confronted him and Frisbee ultimately left the Vineyard. Then followed an act that arguably amounts to iconoclasm: Frisbee’s name was more or less erased from the histories of both Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard (Luhrmann 2012: 33–34). In 1993, Frisbee died of AIDS. The centrality of the Holy Spirit’s manifestations that Frisbee brought had become a defining characteristic of the Vineyard movement. Charismatic creativity had not yet reached its limits and this time it would cause trouble for Wimber.

The Third Controversy: The Toronto Blessing On New Year’s Eve 1994, in the Vineyard Fellowship at Toronto Airport, a pastor prayed for his flock. The pastor was John Arnott, who had recently



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returned from Argentina with an experience of more anointing by the Holy Spirit. By the end of the meeting, people were lying spread out on the floor. The Toronto Vineyard had been a more or less insignificant church in what was now the Association of Vineyard Churches. At first, the Vineyard provided a network for spreading the phenomenon, but Toronto would soon become the new center of religious attraction for those seeking a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit (Römer 2002: 17–18). Over the next ten years, people from around the world would pilgrimage to Toronto by the hundreds of thousands, many of them “fetching” the blessing and bringing it back to their own local churches, which in turn would spark the Holy Trinity Brompton and Pensacola/Brownsville revivals (Barrett 2001: 235–236). Two charismatic practices characterized the Toronto Blessing: holy laughter and animal imitation (Anderson 2004: 162). Holy laughter was already recognized as a charismatic gift; Wimber had both seen and endorsed it in his meetings, but in Toronto the manifestations would occur spontaneously throughout the service (Miller 1997: 107). Römer, who invokes Guy Chevreau and Margaret Poloma in support of his view, argues that the Vineyard was the most important influence for the Toronto Blessing, seeing as it was a Vineyard church (Römer 2002: 18). Another strand of influence came from the Word-of-Faith movement. Preachers who were influential to the Word-of-Faith movement, such as Kathryn Kuhlman and Benny Hinn, had also inspired Arnott. Rodney Howard-Browne, a South African evangelist who is often associated with the phenomenon, had a background at Kenneth E. Hagin’s Rhema Bible Church in Johannesburg.17 Wimber’s understanding of what counted as manifestations of the Holy Spirit would soon be challenged by the second characteristic of the Toronto Blessing— animal imitation: “[A] man who had just given a testimony about how God had changed his life through the renewal was prayed for, as is customary after such testimonies. He fell to the floor and began barking” (Poloma 1999: 373). Animal imitations were interpreted metaphorically, by referring to biblical episodes that included animals. This amounted to an acknowledgement of need for biblical support (Römer 2002: 210–211). Manifestations imitating animals began to spread and started to receive criticism from other pastors in the Vineyard movement, including Wimber (Poloma 1999: 373). Wimber was facing a situation parallel to the one Smith had faced twelve years earlier; Wimber took a different approach. In September 1994, the ­Association of Vineyard Churches Board issued a warning to the Toronto Vineyard against manifestations they described as “exotic and non-biblical” ­(Anderson 2004: 163; Poloma 1999: 378; Römer 2002: 229).18 The Board was also unconvinced by the church’s defense of the practices on biblical grounds. Instead, such attempts created further frustration.

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The Toronto church ignored the warnings, which led Wimber to visit the church in December 1995. The visit resulted in the Toronto church’s expulsion from the Vineyard movement, “due to repeated violations of guidelines ‘both in practice and in print, in spite of many expressions of concern’” (Römer 2002: 230). Not only was the Toronto Blessing deemed irreconcilable with the Vineyard’s code of charismatic practices; it was “changing their definition of renewal” (Anderson 2004: 163; cf. Barrett 2001: 235; Stammer 1995). The Toronto church changed its name to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and became instrumental to the formation of the new International Renewal Network, another global association of churches and ministers with similar views. While the Toronto Blessing’s hype has decreased significantly, researchers report that those who experienced the Toronto Blessing “had a very strong sense of God’s presence” (Ulland 2007: 150, translation mine), and spoke of “a new revelation of God the Father’s love and of inner healing as a result of what they perceived as a refreshing experience” (Anderson 2004: 163). Criticism of the Toronto Blessing was not limited to critics within the Vineyard movement. According to Chryssides and Wilkins, mainstream Christians have been skeptical to the point of hostility to these charismatic practices (Chryssides and Wilkins 2011: 426; cf. Barrett 2001: 236). The controversy has also had an ecumenical impact on Christians who found the phenomenon encouraging, some of whom have declined involvement with the World Council of Churches, hopeful that Christian unity will be achieved, not by organized ecumenical activity, but by means of a charismatic renewal (Chryssides and Wilkins 2011: 352).

Concluding Reflections The Jesus People, Calvary Chapel, and Vineyard movements have been sources of controversy on different levels and charismatic practices seem to have played an important role in the shaping of these movements, though in different ways: Some practices have been regarded as bizarre by the general public or in the press, also by Christians because the limits of the charismata as an emic category are not always clearly defined. As charismatic entrepreneurs, Lonnie Frisbee, Chuck Smith, John Wimber, and John Arnott were willing to remold the category and challenge the limits of its definition in their own time, showing the category’s potential flexibility. Flexibility also seemed to have limits, however, leading to friction and ultimately division in the cases explored above. While differences in charismatic practices have the power to divide, they also provide paths to new connections and lead to the coalescence of new



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movements that ultimately shape their own image and find their niche in the spiritual marketplace. For some researchers, the dynamic between innovation and flexibility, on the one hand, and tradition and fixedness, on the other, confirms Max Weber’s argument of charisma eventually being routinized, preparing the social soil for new sprouts of innovation. It is nonetheless ironic to note the paradox of radical charismatics of one decade turning into the conservative traditionalists in the next. The understanding of the Holy Spirit’s gifts and manifestations in these movements vary. The category of charismatic practices is special because it is not confined to the dry corners of theological debate, but concerns experiences that many people interpret as intimate, life-changing, and emotionally charged encounters with God. Taking into account that these practices engage thousands of people in each church, how the category is defined, what is included or excluded, and whether it is seen as fixed or flexible is a practical matter with practical consequences.

Notes 1. Scheper (2005: 1550) briefly mentions the Catholic Church’s “co-option” of other religious concepts into the category: the seven sacraments, martyrdom, virginity, asceticism, and monasticism among others. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also calls the seven Christian virtues charismata: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and “fear of the Lord” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Section III: 1831). 2. e.g., Lucas 1992. Miller (1997: 180) calls it the Third Great Awakening, but the term is already established as referring to the 1850s to early 1900s in the United States when movements such as the Holiness and classical Pentecostalism became defined denominations. 3. In Eastern Christianity, St. Symeon (tenth century) was connected to the practice of charismata by the Orthodox priest Fr. Eusebius. In Western Christianity, authors who report them include Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo. Further, Hildegard von Bingen and Teresa of Avila are believed to have spoken in tongues. Charismatic practices are also attributed to Waldensians, Albigensians, Morovians, Camisards, and groups that came out of the “Great Awakenings.” 4. The anointing is an important term in charismatic contexts: The phrase “under the anointing” often refers to a temporary, seemingly euphoric state where the influence of the Holy Spirit is enhanced in ways that give an enhanced understanding of the Bible, the ability to work miracles, to engage in spiritual warfare, and “proclaim the gospel both inspirationally and apologetically,” all in ways “not otherwise possible without the full measure of anointing” (Dooley 2006: 29–30).

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5. They were also featured on the covers of various magazines. Time reported: “If any one mark clearly identifies [the young people of the Jesus People movement], it is their total belief in an awesome, supernatural Jesus Christ, not just a marvelous man who lived two thousand years ago, but a living God” (quoted in Luhrmann 2012: 19). 6. I Believe in Miracles was broadcast across the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, hosted by televangelist Kathryn Kuhlman, who would later become a main inspiration for other televangelists, most notably perhaps, Benny Hinn. 7. It is not uncommon to speak of experiences of the Holy Spirit in terms of “fire.” The image is probably inspired by the story of Pentecost in the Book of Acts, where “what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of [the disciples]” (2:2–3). It is also an expression of enthusiasm and seems to follow a sense of personal empowerment, especially in terms of preaching. 8. New churches of this kind often start as Bible study groups in private homes. Growing rapidly, the leader of the group is asked to become a full-time pastor when the group morphs into a larger fellowship and a bigger building is needed for meetings. This is often interpreted as God “calling” the de facto pastor to full-time ministry (Miller 1997: 164–165). As the group continues to grow, so does the number of staff, which is comprised of “lay” people; that is, theological education is not required of them (13–16). It should be added that leadership courses are often offered or recommended to prospective leaders and pastors, especially among the more established churches. 9. This would later develop into Wimber’s “power evangelism” and the publication of a book with the same name. Römer explains power evangelism as gospel proclamation “followed by demonstration of supernatural power through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is assumed that signs and wonders like healing, raising the dead and other miracles empower, in an especially effective way, the truth contained in the gospel” (2002: 21). 10. Today, such groups are called “cell groups” or “Bible groups” and can be found in many churches of various denominations. 11. “Exorcism” may seem brutal and it is easy to understand reactions to such events becoming the bread and butter of church meetings. Some Christians distinguish between exorcism and deliverance: While deliverance is prayer on behalf of a Christian “tormented by demons” based on the belief that a demon can have some degree of influence over them without outright possessing them, exorcism is the driving out of a demon, which Luhrmann’s use of “in-dwelling demon” appears to imply. On the other hand, neither Luhrmann nor Miller appear to distinguish between the two.



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12. In Kevin Springer’s and John Wimber’s book Power Evangelism, the authors claim that exorcism events in “a remote village in Africa would result in many members of the tribe converting to Christianity. In the United States it only raises questions about the relationship between mental illness and demonic delusions”  (1988: p. xviii, quoted in Luhrmann 2012: 317). Africans, it seemed to Wimber, were more predisposed to understanding the signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit than were Americans, blinded as they were by modernism. 13. The inductive experiential approach is also what Miller (1997: 122) claims separates new paradigm Christians from evangelicals and fundamentalists. 14. As Luhrmann also exemplifies, the practice of exorcism sometimes stirs worries regarding its impact on mental health. She reflects: “To the extent that prayer techniques can . . . also make more real a leering demon . . . it was hard for me to avoid the conclusion that ruminating on demons is dangerous” (2012: 266). Ironically, the danger seems to be the very perception of demons, and in the interpretation of negative events and emotional states as due to demonic activity. Meanwhile, popular culture has displayed an increasing interest in “supernatural horror films,” more or less starting with The Exorcist (1973) and an increasing number of movies in the same genre in subsequent decades. 15. According to Miller, Gulliksen’s decision to leave was due to the Vineyard becoming “too bureaucratic” (2005: 141), but in an interview he gave in 2004, it seemed that the Vineyard’s focus on the Holy Spirit’s power had become too strong even for him. He also had regrets for not seeking co-leadership (­ Bartholomew 2004). 16. According to Luhrmann (2012: 34), Frisbee was married at the time of the relationship with the congregant, but Frisbee had divorced in 1973 due to his wife’s affair with another pastor. The congregant seems to have remained anonymous and what the consequences were for him, if any, seems unclear. In Frisbee’s funeral, Smith drew on the biblical story of Samson to describe Frisbee’s life, making obvious his view of Frisbee's sexual orientation as a tragedy. 17. Rodney Howard-Browne has become known for calling himself a “Holy Ghost bartender,” a reference to holy laughter and a passage where Paul encourages the Ephesians (5:18) to “be not drunk with wine, but filled with the Holy Spirit.” According to Anderson (2004: 163), Howard-Browne had a reputation for outbreaks of holy laughter happening in his sermons going back to 1992. 18. “We are willing to allow ‘experiences’ to happen without endorsing, encouraging or stimulating them; nor should we seek to ‘explain’ them by inappropriate ‘proof-texting.’ Biblical metaphors (similar to those concerning a lion or a dove, etc.) do not justify or provide a proof-text for animal behavior. There are some manifestations while socially uncomfortable (i.e., they wouldn’t seem ‘decent and in order’ in most church context today), have biblical precedent. . . . The absence of a proof-text, however, does not necessarily disallow an experience. If so, none of us could go to Disneyland, use computers to write messages, or have worship bands” (quoted in Poloma 1999: 378)

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Bibliography Anderson, Allan. 2004. An Introduction to Pentecostalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, Allan, Michael Bergunder, André Droogers, and Cornelis van der Laan. 2010. “Introduction.” In Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods, edited by id., 1–9. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Anderson, Terry. 1995. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barrett, David. 2001. The New Believers: A Survey of Sects, “Cults” and Alternative Religions. London: Cassell Illustrated. Bartholomew, Robert. 2004. “Gulliksen: Vineyard a ‘Clanging Cymbal.’” Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, May 30. http://barthsnotes.com/2004/05/30/gulliksen-vineyarda-clanging-cymbal/. Beyer, Peter. 2007. Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. Calvary Chapel. 2012. “About.” http://www.calvarychapel.com/about/. Calvary Chapel Magazine. 2013. “Calvary Chapel Magazine.” http://www.­calvarymagazine. org/online-magazine. Chancellor, James D. 2005. “A Family for the Twenty-first Century.” In Controversial New Religions, 1st ed., edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, 19–42. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chandler, Russell. 1990. “Vineyard Fellowship Finds Groundswell of Followers Religion: John Wimber’s Merging of Supernatural Power and Biblical Prophecy has Led to a ‘Boom Church.’” Los Angeles Times Archives. http://pqasb.­pqarchiver.com/ latimes/access/60154789.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current& date=Oct+5%2C+1990&author=RUSSELL+CHANDLER&pub=Los+Angeles+ Times+%28pre-1997+Fulltext%29&edition=&startpage=1&desc=Vineyard+ Fellowship+Finds+Groundswell+of+Followers+Religion%3A+John+Wimber% 27s+merging+of+supernatural+power+and+biblical+prophecy+has+led+to+a+ %60boom+church.%27. Chryssides, George D.; Wilkins, Margaret Z. 2011. Christians in the 21st Century. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing Ltd. Dart, John. 1987. “Fuller to Restore Healing Class—with Revisions.” Los Angeles Times Archive, February 7. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/58236020. html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Feb+7%2C+1987& author=JOHN+DART&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+%28pre-1997+Fulltext% 29&edition=&startpage=7&desc=Fuller+to+Restore+Healing+Class-With+ Revisions. Dooley, John E. 2006. “Anoint, Anointing.” In Encyclopedia of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, edited by Stanley M. Burgess, 27–30. London: Routledge. Jackson, Bill. 2005. “A Short History of the Association of Vineyard Churches.” In Church, Identity, and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled



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Times, edited by David A. Roozen and James R. Nieman, 132–140 . Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Jenkins, Philip. 2007. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lucas, Phillip C. 1992. “The New Age Movement and the Pentecostal/Charismatic Revival: Distinct yet Parallel Phases of a Fourth Great Awakening?” In Perspectives on the New Age, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 189–212. New York: SUNY Press. Luhrmann, T. M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Miller, Donald. 1997. Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ———. 2005. “Routinizing Charisma: The Vineyard Christian Fellowship in the Post-Wimber Era.” In Church, Identity, and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times, edited by David A. Roozen and James R. Nieman, 141–162. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2010a. Global Christianity: Christian Movements and Denominations. http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global­ Christianity-movements-and-denominations.aspx. ———. 2010b. Global Christianity: Defining Christian Movements. http://www.­pewforum. org/Christian/Global-Christianity-defining-christian-movements.aspx. Poloma, Margaret M. 1999. “The ‘Toronto Blessing’ in Postmodern Society: Manifestations, Metaphor and Myth.” In The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel, edited by Murray W. Dempster, Byron D. Klaus, and Douglas Petersen, 363–385. Oxford: Regnum Books International. Römer, Jürgen. 2002. The Toronto Blessing. Åbo Akademi: Åbo Akademi University Press. Scheper, George L. 2005. “Charisma.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 3, edited by Lindsay Jones, 1543–1553. New York: Macmillan, 2nd edition. Scott87508. 2010. Kathryn Kuhlman, Lonnie Frisbee & Chuck Smith. [Online Video]. Uploaded September 7. http://youtu.be/gCvH9NOTSzw. Smith, Chuck. 1981. “The History of Calvary Chapel.” Last Times, Fall. http://web.archive.org/web/ 20080716203806/http://www.calvarychapel.com/ assets/pdf/LastTimes-Fall1981.pdf. Stammer, Larry B. 1995. “A Spiritual Split; Anaheim-Based Pentecostal Sect Ousts Controversial Group.” Los Angeles Times Archives. http://pqasb.­pqarchiver.com/ latimes/access/22483467.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current& date=Dec+10%2C+1995&author=LARRY+B.+STAMMER&pub=Los+Angeles+ Times+%28pre-1997+Fulltext%29&edition=&startpage=3&desc=A+Spiritual+ Split%3B+Anaheim-Based+Pentecostal+Sect+Ousts+Controversial+Group. Ulland, Dagfinn. 2007. Guds karneval: En religionspsykologisk studie av Toronto-vekkelsens ekstatiske spiritualitet. Ed. Antoon Geels. Lunds Universitet.

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VineyardUSA.org. 2012a. “About Vineyard.” http://www.vineyardusa.org/site/aboutvineyard. ———. 2012b. “Vineyard History.” http://www.vineyardusa.org/site/about/vineyardhistory. ———. 2012c. “What We Believe.” http://www.vineyardusa.org/site/about/what-webelieve. Wallis, Roy. 2003. “Three Types of New Religious Movement.” In Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader, edited by Lorne L. Dawson, 36–58. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

6

Kabbalah Centre marketing and meaning Jody Myers

“we are not a religion and we are not new!” protests the Public Relations Director of the Kabbalah Centre, an organization that defines itself as an international spiritual community. The Kabbalah Centre has puzzled onlookers from its inception. It incorporates practices from Orthodox Judaism, but its adherents are a diverse mix of ethnic Jews and non-Jews who may still profess loyalty to traditional religions—other than Judaism—or to no religion at all. The exotic Hebrew and Aramaic texts that comprise its liturgy and scripture (including the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and kabbalistic and Hasidic writings) are all interpreted as metaphors of electrical circuitry and healing; reincarnation appears to be a central concept, and drinking “Kabbalah water” and wearing red string bracelets are routine daily practices. The Kabbalah Centre’s ­hybridity and its rapid pace of change during its first decades of existence have prevented even its own leaders, until just recently, from agreeing on a common description of their multifaceted entity.1 Since its inception in the 1970s, the Kabbalah Centre has been controversial because it seeks to spread Kabbalah (a millennium old mystical tradition of Jewish theology and practice) and because it operates much like a business. Both aspects have attracted fierce criticism. Nearly all complaints about the organization have focused on the funds and volunteer labor it manages to elicit from devotees—including Hollywood celebrities—who, according to these reports, mindlessly accept its distorted interpretation of Kabbalah at great personal cost. My sketch here of the Kabbalah Centre (KC) neither endorses nor denies these judgments. Instead, I am providing a description of the history and teachings of the KC while focusing on how these two controversial elements—the widespread dissemination of Kabbalah and the practice

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of paying for it—have been expressed and have contributed to the movement’s growth and loss of participants. Both are rooted in the KC’s distinctive interpretation of ancient texts; both are responsible for attracting followers as well as driving them away. My description and analysis are based on years of historical research, qualitative interviews of a wide range of adherents and ­ex-members, and participant-observation at KC events at the Los Angeles headquarters, in other US cities, and in Israel.2

Kabbalah, Judaism, and the Origin of the Kabbalah Centre The Hebrew word kabbalah means “that which has been received,” and Jews have used this term for the Torah, or revelatory teachings, believed to be passed from God to Moses to Jewish sages over the centuries. In the medieval era, Kabbalah came to designate only the deeper core of divine wisdom considered too exalted for most Jews to learn. It included subjects such as the nature of God, the processes of creation, the origins of evil, and the means by which possessors of this wisdom could participate in the divine dynamics that sustain the world. By the thirteenth century, such esoteric teachings appeared in written form in the collection of books called The Zohar. The Zohar was written in a cryptic Aramaic commentary to the Pentateuch and presumed familiarity with the Talmud and other rabbinic texts. Only highly book-learned persons could understand it or later works of the same type, and a small elite of rabbis restricted access to these teachings to men like themselves. Although kabbalistic ideas were unusual, what was deemed to link devotees to God included rituals and behaviors performed by any devout Jew, and kabbalists performed these meticulously and with special devotions. Despite the rule of secrecy, there were kabbalists who believed it important to spread these doctrines. Kabbalistic ideas proliferated in different forms in the far-flung lands where Jews lived. The frequently heard dictum that only learned and married Orthodox Jewish men over the age of 40 should be privy to Kabbalah was not always followed (Idel 1991; Nadler 1997:29–49). By the seventeenth century, kabbalistic ideas, texts, and symbols infused popular Jewish belief and practice (Idel 1991). Some Christians used kabbalistic texts to fashion distinctive Christian theologies, and eventually kabbalistic elements appeared in occult teachings and “metaphysical” spiritual traditions (Coudert and Shoulson 2004). By the mid-twentieth century, however, Kabbalah had almost ceased to be a living spiritual resource. Most Jews regarded it as arcane pre-modern superstition, and it was the subject of academic research as a largely pre-modern cultural phenomenon.



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In 1960s America, however, Kabbalah served a new cause. Orthodox rabbis seeking to draw secular college-aged Jews back to Judaism or away from ­countercultural non-Jewish religious movements infused their teachings with ­exciting kabbalistic elements. One of these rabbis, Rabbi Philip Berg (1929–2013), had learned Kabbalah from two disciples of Yehuda Ashlag (1885–1954).3 The disciples believed Kabbalah should be taught widely, and with them Berg began to publish Ashlag’s writings and other kabbalistic tracts. Berg, however, took the outreach principle to new lengths under the influence of his new non-Orthodox wife Karen (b. 1945).4 The couple moved to Israel in 1972 and attracted secular Israeli men and women who were intrigued by Berg’s New Age and exotic kabbalistic explanation of Jewish practices. He denied the concept of God as lawgiver and the Torah as the source book of religious rules, and his construction of spirituality—ancient yet dynamic, mystical, voluntaristic, and infused with love—appealed to these young people disdainful of organized religion. Berg and his wife returned to North America in the 1980s with their two sons and a group of Israeli disciples. The latter, called the Hevre (literally, “circle of friends”) were officially volunteers, although they were paid a stipend and provided room and board. Berg trained them to proselytize door-to-door in Canadian and US cities seeking Jews who would be interested in their books, audio-tapes, and classes (Myers 2007: 23–31, 33–62). By the end of the 1980s, the Bergs cast their eyes beyond the numerically small Jewish population. Marketing experts among their new devotees helped Berg communicate in language that had mass appeal. Clever marketing alone does not win customers, however; the product needs to fill a void, and he was doing just that. In a number of cities Berg established centers, each headed by a male disciple and his wife, and together they fostered a community offering spiritual growth and study. “Kabbalah Learning Centre” (using the Canadian spelling) was the name of each center and of the organization as a whole, and both were later called simply “Kabbalah Centre.” Although the teachers and most followers were ethnic Jews and/or Israelis, non-Jews increasingly began to participate. The enlarged Hevre, the unpaid work of its followers, donations, and profits from the sale of KC publications and paraphernalia enabled the KC to expand. Leaders of the organized Jewish community were among the many who denounced the organization as a cult (Myers 2007: 62–69). By the mid-1990s, Berg described the KC’s mission as a fulfillment of a divine plan to bring kabbalistic wisdom to all of humanity. He maintained that Kabbalah had been originally given to Adam and Eve and later was disseminated throughout the world, forming the basis for universal spiritual wisdom. But these ideas became corrupted and then concretized as organized

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religions. Judaism, too, is a corrupted form of Kabbalah, according to KC teachings, although it is closest to the pure wisdom because the two share sacred texts and the Hebrew language.5 Perhaps most crucial for the growth of the KC was the enthusiastic devotion of the popular singer Madonna (Huss 2005). Famously hostile to Catholicism and organized religion, her endorsement of the KC and her attendance there attracted enormous media attention along with more followers and their funds. The Berg family moved its headquarters to Los Angeles in the mid1990s. They constructed worldwide phone networks, Internet classes, charity projects, and more centers in North America, South America, Europe, and Israel. The KC budget reached the tens of millions of dollars, and its publishing arm began to regularly produce Kabbalah-infused self-help and personal healing books, accessible guides to Kabbalah, prayer books, and translations of older kabbalistic texts. People could also purchase enrollment in courses (online or in-person) and access to special holiday and guest speaker events, although Sabbath worship at the more than thirty centers worldwide and personal counseling from teachers by phone or Internet are generally free. Since late 2004, when Rabbi Berg suffered a debilitating stroke, Karen Berg and sons Yehuda (b. 1972) and Michael (b. 1973) have directed the enterprise.

Kabbalah Centre Beliefs Kabbalah Centre’s teachings have their foundation in the Zohar, which describes God as having an unknowable essence called Ein sof (literally, “without end”) imagined as infinite light. Continuing with this metaphor, the Zohar explains that Ein sof emanated some of its light into ten vessels, called sefirot, forming revealed divinity. Yehuda Ashlag’s distinctive expression of this myth was his image of Ein sof as an energy force aiming to continually give of itself. The cosmos is its recipient, and because it is continually being infused by the power of that divine light, it strives to give, too. These two drives, which Ashlag called the Desire to Share and the Desire to Receive, are evenly balanced when the universe is in its ideal state. Human souls, however, received too much without giving in return, and they “fell.” The kabbalistic expression for this is “eating the bread of shame”; that is, when one enjoys something that one has not earned one naturally feels a bit humiliated or undeserving unless one gives in return. The souls became self-centered and bent upon their own satisfaction, driven by a Desire to Receive—for Oneself Alone—without any Desire to Share, and consequently human society and life are miserable and violent. Ashlag taught that God provided the tools for renewed harmony through the



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Torah. Understood on its deepest level through kabbalistic teachings, the Torah guides people to refine their souls so that they desire to give and will receive only in order to give in response. For Ashlag, performance of Judaism’s norms and rituals, along with social and political reform, were instrumental to this refinement process (Huss 2006). Berg adapted Ashlag’s principles and, as explained above, eventually insisted that specifically Jewish activities were essential for humanity as a whole. Astrology and reincarnation, popular to Berg’s audience, were given a central role by Berg. Further, he replaced “God” with the non-personal absolute called “the Light,” a generous, nonjudgmental force that energizes the universe. Consistent with its giving nature, God/the Light revealed a fragment of its wisdom to select humans who, in turn, are enjoined to share it widely. This concept of divinity appeals to people who reject the idea of a deity who rules, punishes, and willfully makes human life difficult. Berg explained that evil, ill health, and natural calamities occur automatically in response to self-centered behavior (responding to the Desire to Receive for Oneself Alone) in this or one’s previous incarnations. These evils can be rectified (in this or later lives) when people emulate the Light’s Desire to Share. Berg taught a method of kabbalistic astrology to discern the status of each soul and the best ways to refine it. Specific meditation practices, study, daily behaviors, and the performance of rituals—many of these equivalent to normative Jewish religious practice—are regarded as tools of the refinement process. Thus, a fundamental belief of KC teaching is that God wants knowledge of Kabbalah to spread in order to improve human existence and achieve harmony. It is also fundamental that everything must be earned or acquired through effort. In the words of the popular adage, “there is no free lunch,” and in kabbalistic terminology, there is no “eating the bread of shame.” Unless one reciprocates, one’s enjoyment will be dampened and the bounty will eventually disappear or have a later cost. Payment or giving may be monetary, but it may also take the form of restricting self-centered and antisocial actions. Every instance of receiving without adequately earning or giving in response will exact a price; conversely, every act of giving or restricting will result in receiving. According to this perspective, even the smallest of one’s actions is meaningful and consequential, and to a great extent, every person can shape his or her destiny. It is an empowering theology. These principles are embedded into KC operations. The belief that Kabbalah is meant to be spread is reflected in the unapologetic and deliberate use of metaphors and images that fit the popular taste of the moment. For example, Star Wars themes were used in the writings of the early 1980s (P. Berg 1986), whereas personal healing dominated during the first years of the

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twenty-first century when this theme was popular (Y. Berg 2004; Myers 2007: 109–135). Spreading Kabbalah is the mission of the KC, and a perusal of the website (http://www.kabbalah.com) shows the extensive effort that is made. Personnel are assigned to handle public relations and marketing. The principle that one must earn what one acquires is reflected in the KC “pay as you go” system for classes, meals, and programs, rather than the more conventional Jewish method of funding through an annual membership fee and behindthe-scene individual donations. Teachers suggest that everyone donates their labor and funds to the KC or engages in its charity projects as acts of giving or “restricting,” and people are urged to tithe to the KC. Legally speaking, the KC consists of several religious organizations and the for-profit Kabbalah Centre Enterprises, Inc.6

Religious Practices/Spiritual Tools Donating one’s labor or funds or restricting one’s selfish impulses may not be enough to offset one’s moral deficits, or may be too difficult for a person with a normal human soul which is at an unrefined self-centered level, and for this reason God provided guidance through the Torah. In this tenet Berg was consistent with Ashlag and previous kabbalists. He differed in his language: Berg’s term for the mitzvot (the commands of the Torah) was “spiritual tools,” and he explained that these should not be regarded as obligatory duties; further, Kabbalah is not Judaism. The spiritual tools consist primarily of the behaviors recorded in the Torah and Talmud and required by Jewish religious law—dress codes, Sabbath and holiday observances, dietary restrictions known as kashrut, limitations on conjugal relations, and the like—but Berg insisted these are not duties owed to God, but practices of “receiving,” “giving,” and “restriction” that facilitate refinement of the soul (Myers 2007: 137–179). For example, the Sabbath is described as a time when there is an unconstrained flow of divine energy, and people can absorb it effortlessly when they cease from their regular labors, especially when aided by Sabbath prayers, meals, and songs. Berg’s first followers were secular Israeli Jews, and even though the full performance of the mitzvot appeared nearly identical to that of the Orthodox Jews they disdained, his followers were delighted to learn that they were privy to the “real” reasons for the mitzvot and the “right” way of performing them. After Berg returned to North America and sought a larger, not necessarily Jewish audience, he minimized the importance of the mitzvot. He developed spiritual tools that were less demanding and requiring less specialized knowledge based upon or taken from Jewish or New Age or folk traditions. They



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include wearing a specially tied red string around one’s wrist, regularly engaging in simple meditations such as gazing upon pages of the Zohar or upon a combinations of Hebrew letters regarded as divine names, and drinking water that had been infused with divine energy through Berg’s own meditations. This range of spiritual tools, combined with the principle that spiritual behavior is legitimate only when it is not coerced and when it is performed solely out of the desire to connect to the Light, produces a community patterned like a number of concentric circles. The inner core of practitioners consists of the top leaders, the Hevre (teachers and staff supported by the KC) comes next, and the followers whose religious lives revolve around performance of the mitzvot. These followers are predominantly but not entirely Jewish and many are Israeli. Like Orthodox Jews, all in this inner core honor the Sabbath and holidays by ceasing work, gathering for special meals and prayers, and performing rituals. They follow the kosher laws, circumcise their male children, and educate their sons and daughters in Bible, Talmud, and liturgy as well as in kabbalistic texts. Outside of this group are people who attend communal worship less regularly; restrict their work, diet, and sexual behavior less profoundly; and depend more upon the non-mitzvot spiritual tools such as scanning the Zohar and simple meditations. In the outermost ring of followers are those who occasionally attend KC events and learn its perspectives without actually engaging in the recommended communal worship, private meditations, rituals, or special behaviors. People who live away from an actual urban KC generally remain outside of the inner core. There are no firm boundaries between these varying groups. People who do less are not disparaged; indeed, they are praised for using the spiritual tools to the extent that they choose, and they are encouraged to do more when/ if they are ready. People of all religious and ethnic backgrounds participate at all levels. In accordance with what the KC calls “kabbalistic tradition,” however, spiritual tools for males and females differ, and some acts are reserved for Jews. The KC calls Jews “Israelites” and non-Jews are “Nations of the World.” The former need to restrict/give far more than do the latter—and consequently they can “generate” and share far more divine energy. These distinctions are most obvious during communal worship, in which only Jewish males take leading roles and seating is gender-segregated. But the distinction is evident also in the rabbinic leadership which is reserved to Jewish men. Rabbi Berg and his sons were ordained in conventionally Orthodox rabbinic seminaries, and several other Jewish men were ordained by the Bergs, and the important non-rabbinic teachers are Jews.7 Conversion to the status of Jew is emphatically discouraged. Some non-Jewish members of the inner core, however, have undergone the lengthy conversion process out of the

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conviction that it is the true identity of their souls. In Los Angeles, a city with a sizable Jewish and Israeli population, a greater number of attendees at communal worship will be Jews than, for example, at the Buenos Aires KC, and the former contains more families practicing at the most intensive level.8 It is not surprising, then, that people who notice the multi-religious audience that attends KC events and classes do not know how to label the group. From one vantage point it looks like Orthodox Judaism. But KC leaders vehemently reject this identity and Orthodox Jews show contempt for the KC. From another perspective, the KC appears to be a spiritual center for the unchurched as well as for people who use its resources to augment their other conventional religious practices. A description of its annual Rosh Hashanah retreat will illustrate how KC beliefs, rites, and community are expressed. The KC describes the two-day holiday as a time when one is reminded of the creation of the universe and the Creator’s desire for humanity to perfect itself and bring the world back to its original harmony. The purpose of the communal gathering is summed up as follows: “We do this work for more than just our own personal fulfillment. We do it for the world. On Rosh Hashanah, with so many sparks united together again as one, we can change our consciousness, awaken our perfection and carry that into the world.”9 Between 2,000 to 3,000 people purchase tickets for the event held at a major luxury hotel, where prayer services, study, kosher meals, and child care are arranged. The cost is substantial: at the Anaheim, ­California, 2012 retreat, a single adult paid $1,560 for two nights and seven meals. There is an atmosphere of happy camaraderie as old friends meet and people from distant points in North America and other lands are encouraged to become acquainted and share their personal stories. The most committed ­attendees—those who want maximum access to the divine energy provided by the holy days—will follow kabbalistic tradition by refraining from writing or active use of electricity or phones, and the men will have dunked in a mikveh (ritual bath) immediately prior to the first events. All males, however, wear white clothing (including head covering), which indicates their power to “generate light,” while females are clothed colorfully and attractively in all styles of dress. Everyone attends the communal worship service that is held in a large hall; men and women are on different sides of the room, presided over by the males of the Berg family and the Hevre. The Hebrew and Aramaic liturgy is chanted by a prayer leader who is frequently joined by the entire congregation who can view the words in their original language and in English transliteration projected onto huge screens at the front of the hall. There is no translation, because for the KC the literal meaning of the words is irrelevant. All throughout the prayers, another leader explains which sefirot or Hebrew letters should be



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meditated upon in order to draw down specific types of divine energy or to repair particular problems within one’s soul or within society. The service is frequently interrupted by spiritual exercises that involve attendees forming small groups and sharing experiences about personal despair and rejuvenation, confusion and insight, sorrow and joy. Hearing the blasts of the shofar (ram’s horn) and the sermons are high points of the service. Enough members of the congregation know the melodies so that novices can join in, and often during standing prayers the worshipers link arms and sway together. The overarching themes in the prayers and in other activities are sharing with others, improving oneself, and changing the world.

Outreach and Commerce Spreading the wisdom and giving of oneself, explained above, are inextricably linked in KC teachings as well as in institutional operations. While these beliefs and operating principles have been essential for the movement’s growth, they also figure prominently among the reasons people cite for why they have left the KC in disillusionment and anger. From its earliest door-to-door recruiting to current KC billboards and Web advertisements, KC outreach has been aggressive. Religious proselytism is, of course, not new; nor is the link between the desire to increase religious affiliation and the attendant expectation of financial gain. Virtually all religious groups today market themselves, especially in religious societies like the United States where the freedom of religion ensures lots of choices. Religious marketing is, compared to the past, more pervasive, and religious institutions are more likely now than in the past to hire public relations and marketing specialists and to employ professional consultants to help them find and keep followers. The growth in the KC’s use of these tools has paralleled the general growth of religious marketing in the United States (Einstein: 2007 1–14, 147–172). The KC’s marketing has been blatant and the free media attention from its popular celebrity followers has increased its visibility. The KC’s inclusive, universalist message is also a factor in explaining its success at getting hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to sample its teachings. Ironically, the KC’s evangelism has also driven away adherents. First, the organization has not managed to simultaneously proselytize and adequately meet the needs of the people who are already inside. Second, the expanding pool of participants has its down side. Some people joined to learn esoteric wisdom not previously available. By the late 1990s Kabbalah became more widely taught within mainstream Jewish religious denominations and through various venues, and the KC no longer had a monopoly on Kabbalah. This

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enabled discontented Jewish members (some regarded the extensive outreach to non-Jews as a betrayal of Kabbalah’s roots) to leave and still engage meaningfully with kabbalistic traditions elsewhere; indeed, for many in this Jewish cohort, the KC was a gateway to Orthodox Judaism. As the KC included a wider swath of society among its followers, its devotees could no longer regard themselves as part of an elect: anyone could and did get access. Others have simply objected to the inevitable “watering down” of the teachings that accompanies an expanded audience. In short, the very success of the KC undermined its ability teach esoteric matters. Indeed, there is no accurate count of KC devotees because there is no system of membership; rather, the KC keeps track of the number of participants through its records of phone contacts, purchases, course enrollments, and mentor–student relationships. Older centers have closed and new ones opened.10 It appears that since the late 1990s, when kabbalistic study and rituals became available within mainstream and alternative Jewish denominations, fewer non-Israeli Jews venture inside. Expatriate Israelis, however, find the centers a place to meet other Israelis and engage in a non-Orthodox spiritual life in which the Hebrew language is central. The KC regards its target audience as plentiful. “We are attracting the fastest growing group,” explains the KC’s Director of Public Relations, “the ‘nones,’ those people who, when asked their religion, answer ‘none.’”11 I would also argue that the KC doctrine that one must work for what one wishes to receive is a strength as well as a weakness.12 In Western societies dominated by commercial values and marketing, the members of the aspiring class from which the KC draws its participants recognize that a person rarely advances without expending a great deal of effort—and the KC supplies the tools that will fix problems and ensure a good future. “You get what you pay for” does not appear to be crass commercialism but a universal truth. Life, then, is like a marketplace in an idealized free society: the goods have a price, but everyone can purchase them if they wish. Problems arise, of course, when people find the marketplace to be crass and uncaring. The commercial ethic means that wealthy attendees invariably receive more attention from leaders and Hevre than do the non-wealthy. Big donations are valued more than smaller ones. Scholarships for courses and events are virtually nonexistent. It is difficult to feel part of a community when, other than the free Sabbath worship, community events have a price tag. Religious congregations typically encourage their members to act toward each other as an extended family, and they urge members to take care of each other: visit the sick, feed the poor, and extend charity or loans to the unfortunate among them. These protective functions are largely overlooked



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by the KC, which disparages the “club mentality” of organized religions. Instead, KC charitable giving is delivered outside of the community. The directors of each Centre have quite a challenge in forging a community with tight bonds within such a loose framework. People have left the KC embittered because, whether they gave generous or lesser donations, they do not feel the leadership treated them kindly or respectfully. Finally, there is that nagging suspicion produced when a spiritual community acts like a business: perhaps it is merely a business. This accusation, which has dogged the KC since its beginning, is the one made by former participants who had been among the most generous donors of funds and among the most dedicated of the Hevre. They were deeply implicated in the system in which enormous sums of money were changing hands in the name of spreading Kabbalah. They were well aware—it is no secret—that the Berg families live in luxury, enjoy ample personal assistance, and travel worldwide in comfort. But this could also be explained by the tenets of the KC: the Bergs gave and continue to give so much, and so they are rewarded; and they need to be equipped to reach out and spread Kabbalah. At some point, however, something occurred to convince these ex-believers that the Bergs are either operating a scam or are merely exploiting valuable teachings for their personal gain. It is the confluence of theology and operating principles that makes it so difficult to come to a conclusion about the KC. Quite a few of its ideas and rituals appear strange, fabricated, and self-serving. Yet, upon further exploration, many of these can be found in kabbalistic writings; after all, religious notions and rituals from the pre-modern era often do seem, from a modern vantage point, to be superstitious. For example, there is a basis in Jewish tradition and historical practice for the belief that the books of the Zohar confer protective power over people who possessed them, whether or not those books are ever opened or even understood by the residents (Huss 1998: 295). Ignorant of this custom, critics have ridiculed the KC for urging people to buy a set of the Zohar and place it, unopened, in their homes. Do the Bergs actually believe in the power of the Zohar in accordance with tradition? Or is their recommendation prompted by the financial benefit they receive from the purchase of the KC’s own high-priced sets of the Zohar? Many have tried and failed to find irrefutable proof one way or another. One cannot know for certain. The correspondence between the KC’s religious tenets and their commercial practices enables this controversial organization to silence the doubts from within and dodge its accusers from without. The second generation is poised to take leadership, and they are bolstered by the KC’s extensive commercial holdings. As with most new religious movements, only time will tell whether or how this one will continue.

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Notes 1. Personal interviews with Kabbalah Centre Director of Public Relations, April and May 2013. 2. Many newspaper articles that present a history of the KC contain popular misconceptions of the very complex religious tradition called Kabbalah as well as basic errors of fact about the KC. My research was published in 2007 as Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Centre in America. This chapter summarizes parts of the book and adds new analysis. 3. Philip Berg’s autobiography, Education of a Kabbalist (P. Berg 2000), presents a single chain of transmission from Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag to Rabbi Yehudah Brandwein and then to himself. He and the KC date the origins of the organization to 1922, when Ashlag arrived in Jerusalem and found disciples. 4. My personal interview with Shlomo Krakovsky, who witnessed his father studying with Yehudah Ashlag, as well as the research on Ashlag by Jonatan Meir, undermine the KC’s claim that Ashlag was determined to reveal Kabbalah to a universal audience; see Myers 2007: 22–23 and Meir 2007. 5. Rarely does one find in KC courses and writings a compact and clear narrative of their history of Kabbalah. The one presented here was drawn from books and lectures from the mid-1990s and after. Another version that situates Kabbalah within Judaism can be found in the earlier books and articles; see Myers 2007: 88–91. 6. The most recent discussion of KC financial resources, written in the wake of the announcement that the KC was being audited by the IRS, is the 2001 Los Angeles Times article “Center Has Multiple Revenue Streams,” by Kim Christenson and Harriet Ryan; see http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/18/entertainment/ la-et-kabbalah-finances-20,111,018. See also Einstein (2008: 154–155) for earlier and more specific data. 7. Philip Berg (at that time he was called by his birth name, Shraga Feival Gruberger) was ordained from Torah VaDaat seminary in 1951. Like most graduating rabbis of the time, he found employment in business. He never attended secular university, although for some years he claimed to hold a doctorate. Both sons received ordination at Keneset Yehezkel Seminary in Israel. 8. Personal interview with Kabbalah Centre Director of Public Relations, May 2013. 9. http://www.kabbalah.com/events/rh2012/about. 10. http://www.kabbalah.com/locations. 11. Personal interview with Kabbalah Centre Director of Public Relations, April 2013. 12. Personal interviews conducted primarily during 1999 to 2007 and to a lesser extent from 2008 to 2013 form the basis for my statements about ex-members.



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Bibliography Berg, Philip. 1986. The Star Connection: The Science of Judaic Astrology. New York: Research Centre of Kabbalah International. Berg, Philip. 2000. Education of a Kabbalist. Tel Aviv: Kabbalah Centre International. Berg, Yehuda. 2004. The Red String Book: The Power of Protection, Technology for the Soul. New York: Kabbalah Publishing. Christenson, Kim, and Harriet Ryan. 2001. “Center Has Multiple Revenue Streams.” Los Angeles Times. October 18. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/18/entertainment/ la-et-kabbalah-finances-20111018. Coudert, Allison, and Jeffrey S. Shoulson, eds. 2004. Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists, Jews, and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Einstein, Mara. 2007. Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age. New York: Routledge. Huss, Boaz. 1998. “Sefer ha–Zohar as a Canonical, Sacred and Holy Text: Changing Perspectives of the Book of Splendor between the Thirteenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 7: 257–307. ———. 2005. “All You Need Is LAV: Madonna and Postmodern Kabbalah.” Jewish Quarterly Review 95: 611–624. ———. 2006. “‘Altruistic Communism’: The Modernistic Kabbalah of Rabbi Ashlag” [in Hebrew]. Iyunim Bitkumat Israel 16: 115–116. Idel, Moshe. 1991. “Perceptions of Kabbalah in the Second Half of the 18th Century.” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 1: 55–114. Meir, Jonatan. 2007. “The Revealed and the Revealed within the Concealed: On the Opposition to the ‘Followers’ of Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag and the Dissemination of Esoteric Literature” [in Hebrew]. Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 16: 151–258. Myers, Jody. 2007. Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Centre in America. Westport, CT: Praeger. Nadler, Allen. 1997. The Faith of the Mithnagdim; Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

7

Controversial Afro-American Muslim Organizations Göran Larsson

when writing about so-called controversial new religious movements, it is, among other issues, important to elaborate on what is meant by “controversial.” First of all, a religious group or movement is controversial for the majority society because it calls into question what is perceived to be normal, suggesting new ways in which society might be organized. But a group can also preach and practice a lifestyle that breaks the laws of the society. It is an empirical fact that many leaders of new religious movements have ended up in jail or, as I will show in what follows, been put into mental institutions or other forms of ­detention on weak charges (cf., e.g., Knight 2008). Furthermore, it is also clear that novel or “creative” innovations that make use of “older” traditions have a tendency to become controversial for those who feel they have monopolies on how to interpret so-called old or original traditions. Although I will focus on new religious movements that explicitly draw from Islamic traditions, most Sunni and Shia Muslims are at best perplexed by innovative interpretations, and several Afro-American Muslim traditions are bluntly labeled heretical by the majority of Muslims, both inside and outside of North America.1 One example of a very critical opinion was posted on the homepage of Islamweb.net: Regarding the “Nation of Islam,” their official doctrine is that Allah appeared in the form of a human being named Fareed Muhammad, and that this “incarnation of God” chose another man, called Elijah Muhammad, as his Prophet. This is a clear contradiction of the Monotheistic faith (Tawhid), and of the Qur’anic teaching according to which Muhammad (blessings and peace upon him) is the Seal of the



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Prophets. That is enough to say that everyone who belongs to the “Nation of Islam” is not, ipso facto, a Muslim, but an unbeliever. Muslims must declare this truth, and each one of them who keeps silent while listening to Mr. Farrakhan being called “a Muslim leader” is sinning.2 From an academic point of view, it is my conviction that these dividing lines should be left to believers to make and that religious studies academicians should not take part in the theological process of deciding how religious traditions ought to be interpreted or practiced. Therefore, I will try my best to understand the movements I have included in this chapter according to their own self-identifications.

What to Select and What to Exclude In citing books such as Arthur Huff Fauset’s Black Gods of the Metropolis (1944), Edward E. Curtis IV’s Muslims in America: A Short History (2009a), or Mattias Gardell’s Countdown to Armageddon: Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam in the Latter Days (1995), it is clear that my introduction to controversial new Afro-American Islamic religions is extremely selective and superficial. The religiosity of Afro-American communities in North America has always been rich and complex, and it is therefore not easy to provide a comprehensive introduction. For a short overview the reader is recommended to consult, for example, Religion in America: A Very Short ­Introduction by Timothy Beal (2008). For my purposes here, I have decided to focus on the following three Muslim Afro-American groups: The Moorish Science Temple, The Nation of Islam, and The Five Percenters (aka Five-Percent Nation or The Nation of Gods and Earths). These three groups are often seen as controversial by both the general public and many Sunni and Shia Muslims. The Nation of Islam, which is the best known of the three, has especially been associated with racism and anti-Semitism. Although different movements and leaders have preached different solutions for Afro-Americans—for example, the peaceful ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) or the more aggressive language of Malcolm X (1925–1965)—most leaders and movements share the fact that they have been targeted by, and still face, racism and discrimination. However, these negative experiences are often combined with a strong notion of pride, a drive for equal rights, and a search for a better society. Racism, discrimination, and protest against the white majority society are therefore recurring themes in AfroAmerican religions, and socioeconomical factors must also be taken into

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consideration if we want to understand the messages preached by these three movements. For example, regarding the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam, both movements emerged at a time when large numbers of AfroAmericans had migrated to the northern industrial cities of Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Urbanization, racism, and the hope for a better life became fertile soil for new religious movements and novel political aspirations. This was also a time when racism was rampant. To counter this development, Afro-American thinkers came up with new, alternative ways of explaining their situation, history, and future. One important figure was Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) and his establishment of the back-to-Africa movement, which was organized under the umbrella of the Universal Negro Improvement ­Association (UNIA) that had been established during the 1920s. The interwar period and the economic crisis that followed the stock market crash of 1929 was also a strong mechanism for social, political, and religious changes, and all of these processes had a massive impact on the religious lives of AfroAmericans in the North American landscape.

The Moorish Science Temple Very little is known about Timothy Drew (1886–1929), alias Noble Drew Ali, the founder of the Moorish Science Temple. According to the hagiographical information about him, Drew was born in 1886 in North Carolina to ex-slaves living among Cherokee Indians. He was primarily raised by an aunt who is said to have abused him; because of this maltreatment he left home and went out into the world as a traveler who journeyed with gypsies. Eventually he came to Egypt and, after being tested in the Pyramid of Cheops, according to Sylvester Johnson (2010), he became known as a man who had received esoteric knowledge about divine nature. With the appearance of his Circle Seven Koran (aka The Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of America), he presented himself as a prophet (Ali, no date) and started using the name Noble Drew Ali. Despite the title of his revealed book, it is hard to find any direct references to the classical books and traditions of Sunni or Shia Islam in his writings. Muhammad is, for example, only mentioned twice in his book. ­According to Herbert Berg’s analysis, Muhammad’s role in the Circle Seven Koran is mainly to be the one who “fulfilled the works of Jesus of Nazareth.” The information on Jesus is mainly derived from apocryphal writings, not the New Testament (Berg 2005: 690). The main parts of the Circle Seven Koran are taken from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, which was published in 1908 and the Unto Thee I Grant, a text that might be as old as 1760. These



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texts and other writings indicate that Ali was influenced by theosophical ideas, Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry, as well as by the Ahmadiyya mission in the United States (cf. Berg 2006; Curtis 2009a: 35–36). In 1912 or 1913, Ali had a dream telling him to find a religion to uplift fallen mankind, especially the “lost-found nation of American blacks.” ­Because of this dream he established the first Moorish Science Temple in Newark, New Jersey, in 1913 (originally named the Canaanite Temple), and in 1928 formed the Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. in Chicago. One of the most important aspects of his religion was to explain the descent of AfroAmericans and why they ended up in slavery in North America. For Ali, AfroAmericans should be seen as “Asiatics” because they are Moors who are the ancestors of the Canaanites and were relatives of Noah’s son Ham. Because of this ancestry the original religion of the black man is not Christianity, but Islam. He also accused white Europeans and later Caucasian Americans of having distorted Jesus’ ethnic and racial background because, according to Ali, Jesus was originally a Canaanite. In the words of Edward E. Curtis IV, the Moor “was not black, colored, or Negro—words that Drew detested—but ­Asiatic” (Curtis 2009a: 34). Berg concludes his analysis by stating that “the purpose of the mythical Moorish empire is clearly to connect African Americans with a proud heritage, thereby circumventing the then generally accepted picture of Africa, its inhabitants, and their American cousins as savage and uncivilized” (Berg 2005: 691). In line with Berg’s analysis, Ali argued along the racial lines that existed in North America at the time. Since the white ­Caucasians had Christianity as their religion, it was important for the “Asiatic” man to have an alternative, in which context Islam became a viable option. The Temple organized parades that celebrated the Moorish heritage of the “Asiatic” man and woman. Converts were given new names that included the endings “Bey” or “El.” Members were also given identity cards that stressed their Moorish identity as a symbolic way of questioning their so-called Negro identity that they had been given by the majority society (Johnson 2010). The Nation of Islam later adopted a similar approach, giving new members an X as their last name when they converted. Hence, when Malcolm Little converted in 1947, he was given the name Malcolm X. As Berg and others have pointed out, there are few references to Sunni or Shia Islam in the visions and teachings of the Moorish Science Temple. Few readers at the time could tell that Ali’s Koran bore almost no resemblance to the Arabic Koran venerated by Sunni and Shia Muslims. Ali’s revelation is clearly a new book, and it would be wrong to argue that it is an interpretation of the Arabic Koran. It is plausible to argue that the reference to the Koran in the title was used as a method of constructing authority and of presenting the

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founder of the new religion as a true prophet. Scripture, together with other insignia, such as clothes, headgear, and titles, can all serve as powerful tools for confirming authority and authenticity in the process of establishing a new religion (Johnson 2010). Even though the movement has declined since the mysterious death of Noble Drew Ali in 1929 and a number of splinter groups have tried to establish themselves as the true successors of Ali, Johnson concludes that the Moorish Science Temple is still a vital component in the Afro-American religious landscape. The movement is estimated to have something like forty temples and a few thousand members, but these figures are very vague (Johnson 2010). A controversial aspect for many Sunni and Shia Muslims is that Noble Drew Ali is presented as a prophet. However, it should be stressed that few Americans had any knowledge or experience of Islam at the beginning of the twentieth century when the Moorish Science Temple emerged. In the Circle Seven Koran, there is a statement that contradicts how most Muslims view the question of prophethood. The text reads: “The last Prophet in these days is Noble Drew Ali, who was prepared divinely in due time by Allah to redeem men from their sinful ways; and to warn them of the great wrath which is sure to come upon the earth” (quotation taken from Curtis 2008: 63). To most Sunni and Shia Muslims this is perceived as blasphemous because no Prophets have come since Muhammad’s death in 632, according to how most Muslims understand Sura 33:40, which stresses that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets.3 When it comes to rituals, it is also easy to see that the followers of the Moorish Science Temple practice their religion differently from Sunni and Shia Muslims. Debra Washington Mubashshir gives us a glimpse of how a service may be performed within the movement. She writes: “Unlike mainstream Muslims, Moors pray standing upright with two fingers lifted on one hand, five on the other. At the conclusion of the prayer, they recognise the pre-eminence of their leader, proclaim that Allah came ‘in the person of Noble Drew Ali’” (Mubashshir 2001: 17). Singing is also part of the worship, and female leaders were given a central role in the Moorish Science Temple from the beginning of the movement (Mubashshir 2001). When it comes to conflicts with society, the movement had major problems with the FBI in the 1940s, and several police records indicate that the movement was perceived as a treat to the nation. One reason for this conflict was that the leaders of the movement at the time argued that male members of the Moorish Science Temple should avoid being drafted because Japan was an Asiatic country and Asiatic peoples (i.e., Moors) should not fight their brothers (Curtis 2009a: 37–38; Johnson 2010). To be accused of helping or



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supporting Japan in North America during the war was a major offence, and as I will show in the next section, patriotism or rather the lack of patriotism can be used as an efficient way of questioning the loyalty of the followers of new religious movements.

The Nation of Islam Like the Moorish Science Temple, the beginnings of the Nation of Islam are closely related to the social upheavals that followed the end of the First World War and the urbanization process that moved a large number of Afro-Americans from the rural South to the industrial North. It was in the suburbs and black ghetto of Detroit in the 1930s that a man known as Fard Mohammed or Wali Fard started to spread the message that Christianity was not the original or true religion of the black man. The so-called ­Negroes were rather presented as members of the lost tribe of Shabazz from Mecca, and Fard had come to resurrect the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in America (Berg 2005: 691). Although there is almost no i­ nformation about this early period, his followers looked upon Fard as a savior (the great Mahdi) (cf. Curtis 2008: 96). In order to explain the poor situation of Afro-Americans, Fard said that the white man (aka the blue-eyed devil) had gained his power over African and Asian mankind with the aid of brutality, murder, and trickery, and that it was now time to put an end to this ­domination. To achieve this change, the black man had to learn more about his true origins. Fard’s ideas were popularized and spread by Robert Poole (1897–1975), later know as Elijah Muhammad. After the mysterious disappearance of Fard Muhammad in 1934, Elijah Muhammad became the leader of the Nation of Islam, and the Temple of Islam no. 2 in Chicago became the center of the organization. From the 1940s Elijah Muhammad began to develop and explain Fard’s theology and sociology in great detail. For example, Fard was looked upon as equal to Allah, a fact that proved God was a black man and that Elijah Muhammad was his prophet. The influence of earlier black movements, such as Marcus Garvey’s Back to Africa and Noble Drew Ali’s teachings, are clearly manifest in certain ideas in the Nation of Islam. Like the Moorish Science Temple, the theology of the Nation of Islam has relatively few explicit references to the textual sources of Islam (i.e., Koran, Hadith, Sira, and Tafsir) (Berg 2005). Despite important differences from Sunni and Shia Muslim doctrines, however, it is important to stress that this movement is much closer to what are generally regarded as mainline Islamic doctrines and rituals, especially when compared with the Moorish Science Temple. For

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example, the Nation’s followers are expected to worship a deity called Allah, they are supposed to pray five times a day and to abstain from alcohol, drugs, and the eating of pork. The Koran is also quoted approximately 200 times in Elijah Muhammad’s book Message to the Blackman of America (Berg 2006: 25–27). Still it is clear that Elijah Muhammad reads and interprets the Koran through a racial lens. And even though the Koran is being presented as a book of wisdom, it is his (i.e., Elijah Muhammad’s) knowledge that is the supreme wisdom. According to his prophecy a new book will replace both the Bible and the Koran in the future (Berg 2006: 28). Although Elijah Muhammad’s exegesis is different from the classical interpretations of theologians such as Tabari (838–923) or Ibn Kathir (1301–1373), according to Berg (1999), it is still possible to see him as a kind of renewer or reform thinker in an Islamic context. Like the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam propagates a message to black men and women that they should take care of their own lives and should pay attention to their origins. Self-help and solidarity among members are emphasized, and by buying products produced by members of the Nation of Islam, it was possible to break the domination of and dependence on white society. Both the Moorish Science Temple and Christian reformers such as, for example, Sweet Daddy Grace (d. 1960) and his church, The United House of Prayers for All People, developed their own products that were sold in order to establish a self-sufficient economy for the organization and its members (cf. Dallam 2007; Nance 2002). Mental dependence on white society is only one aspect of domination. It was important for Afro-Americans to write their own history and to produce and earn money from their own labor. The aim of the message was to change the life of the individual, and members were told to train themselves by joining either the Muslim Girls Training-General or the Fruit of Islam (a paramilitary organization open only to males; for more information on this branch, see Abdullah 2012). Centuries of abuse and humiliation had prepared the ground for Elijah Muhammad’s message. For example, in his Message to the Blackman in America (1965), the newspaper Muhammad Speaks (later named The Final Call) and in the so-called 120 lessons, the racial  message of the Nation of Islam was elaborated and expanded. Elijah ­Muhammad, for example, describes the early history of Afro-Americans in North America in the following way: In 300 years of slavery, we were lashed, beaten and killed: given no education; and reared and cared for like the slave-master’s stock (horses, cows and other domestic animals). Our children were separated to different plantation owners. For the last approximately 100 years of so-called freedom, the so-called Negroes have been subjected



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to the worst inhuman treatment for any people who have ever lived on earth. They (the devils) have lynched and burned the so-called Negroes during the past century as sport for their wives and children to enjoy! (Elijah Muhammad quoted in Berg 2005: 693) In the mythical story about the black scientist Yacub (for an outline of this myth, see, e.g., Muhammad 1965; Malcolm X [1965] 1968), it is also explained why there is a difference between the races and why the blacks are suffering from the oppression of the whites. However, according to the Nation of Islam, this balance is about to shift, and the black man will rise in the near future. After an unavoidable apocalyptic battle, the black man will be “victorious and recreate their original hegemony under Allāh throughout the world” (Mamiya 1995: 236). Beyond its theologically based racism, campaigns against drugs and a drive for healthy food and nutrition became central aspects of the Nation of Islam. This message was and still is spread in the ghettos and among prisoners in North American institutions of detention. It was also among this clientele that Elijah Muhammad found one of his most important missionaries, Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X (1925–1965). In prison he became acquainted with the theology of Elijah Muhammad and realized why he was in such a dreadful situation: The white people I had known marched before my mind’s eye. From the start of my life. The state white people always in our house after the other whites I didn’t know had killed my father . . . the white people who kept calling my mother “crazy” to her face and before me and my brothers and sisters, until she finally was taken off by white people to the Kalamazoo asylum . . . the white judge and others who had split up the children . . . the Swerlins, the other whites around Mason . . . white youngsters I was in school there with, and the teachers—the one who told me in the eight grade to “be a carpenter” because thinking of being a lawyer was foolish for a Negro. (Malcolm X [1965] 1968: 253) From his conversion in 1947 until he dropped out in March 1964, Malcolm X was without question the most famous and important spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. Through his writings, speeches, and organizational skills, he changed the movement into a mass organization after the Second World War. It is not inaccurate to argue that he politicized the message of the Nation of Islam, which became a strong alternative to the peaceful message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who advocated coexistence with the white

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community. For the Nation, this message would not help the Afro-­Americans, and for them it was necessary to change the system “by any means possible,” in the words of a famous phrase from Malcolm X. Naturally his powerful message was regarded as offensive and even dangerous. Race riots and the demand for change were also very strong in North America in the 1950s and 1960s. Politics was taken into the streets by the followers of the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party, which was founded in Oakland, ­California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale on October 15, 1966. One controversy involved a statement that Malcolm X made after the murder of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963: Malcolm X said that “the chickens are coming home to roost,” a statement understood as explaining that Kennedy had been killed because of the racial hatred and violence that was destroying North America (Malcolm X [1965] 1968: 410–411). Malcolm X also played an important role in the conversion of Cassius Clay (alias Muhammad Ali) to Islam. If Malcolm X’s earlier statements were looked on as pro-violence and antiwhite, later developments indicated that he was able to change his theological opinions about Islam. In March 1964, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam because of politics and different opinions about the structure of leadership within the movement. After going on the hajj to Mecca in 1964, he changed his name to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz and established the Organization of Afro-American Unity. This religious journey had a profound impact on him. From then on he professed what he called an orthodox Sunni Islam, and because of this shift downplayed his racial criticisms. It was when I first began to perceive that “white man,” as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it describes attitudes and actions. In America, “white man” meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. (Malcolm X [1965] 1968: 447) However, he remained politically active and a strong opponent of racial discrimination and injustice until his assassination on February 21, 1965. The killer is still unknown, and the murder has given rise to a large number of speculations, with suggestions that the killer(s) came from the Nation of Islam or the FBI. Although the killing remains unsolved, it is a fact that he had received threats from his former organization (cf. Malcolm X [1965] 1968: 419), but it should also be stressed that the FBI had infiltrated the Nation of



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Islam and that the police had showed a serious concern for so-called new religious movements that had an Afro-American component during the 1950s and 1960s (Curtis 2009a: 37–38). After the death of Elijah Muhammad on February 25, 1975, the Nation of Islam split between the followers of Minister Louis Farrakhan and Warith Deen Muhammad (one of Elijah Muhammad’s eight sons), respectively. Without going into theological details, the split was centered on religious issues, socioeconomic differences among members, and questions of legitimacy and authority (Mamiya 1982). Warith Deen Muhammad today presents himself as a Sunni Muslim, and because of this development he is very skeptical of the former theology of the Nation of Islam, especially its discrimination against whites. However, since 1978, Louis Farrakhan has taken over the leadership of what he calls the resurrected Nation of Islam.4 His legitimacy was further established after he had a vision in which he was taken up by a UFO and transferred to the Mothership to talk to the former leader Elijah Muhammad, who confirmed that he was the new leader of the Nation of Islam (Gardell 1995: 107–111). When it comes to controversies, Louis Farrakhan has been especially criticized for his outspoken criticisms of Jews and has been accused of anti-Semitism on several occasions. He has also emphasized the divide between Afro-Americans and other Americans by arguing that the Nation of Islam and its followers need a separate land or territory for the foundation of a new nation (Mamiya 1982: 142–143).

Five Percenters The Five Percenters5 (aka Five-Percent Nation; Nation of Gods and Earths) is a splinter group from the Nation of Islam. The movement was founded in Harlem, New York, in the 1960s by the Korean War veteran, Clarence Edward Smith. He was a former member of the Nation of Islam known by the name of Clarence 13X. The Five Percenters’ main theological idea is based on one of the Nation of Islam’s teachings, namely that humankind is divided into three groups. The first group is the 85 percent that are ignorant and deceived. The second group is the 10 percent who are the masters of the 85 percent. The third and final group is the 5 percent who are the “poor righteous teachers,” that is, the members of the Five-Percent Nation. Because of his interpretations and because of his social behavior (drinking and gambling), Clarence 13X ended up in conflict with the Nation of Islam and distanced himself from Malcolm X after his hajj to Saudi Arabia in 1964. By the end of 1964, Clarence 13X

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declared himself to be Allah, a word that he reinterpreted as an acronym for “Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head,” and from then on he used Allah as his name. According to his interpretation, the word “Islam” should also be read as an acronym for “I Self Lord And Master.” He also took a much more liberal stance on drugs and gambling than was found in the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam. Because of his self-proclaimed divinity and his public activities in Harlem after the turmoil between the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, he was sentenced to detention for psychiatric care and stayed in different mental institutions for almost two years. During this period he changed his radical opinions on race and took a more liberal stance toward whites. After his release, Allah worked in close cooperation with New York City mayor John Lindsay to help the young people of Harlem and to support a peaceful environment in the late 1960s. Unlike the cities of Chicago and Baltimore, New York was not disturbed by serious race riots. At this point in time the leader of the Five Percenters was able to start the Urban League street academy for the young people of Harlem. For his cooperation with Mayor Lindsay and other representatives of the white establishment, Allah and the Five Percenters attracted criticism from other Afro-American organizations. In 1969 he was assassinated, but the movement survived his death. However, from then on the Five Percenters became more and more associated with gangs, and the message of Allah was spread in American prisons. Because of its involvement in prison riots (e.g., the Attica Prison uprising in 1971), the movement was forbidden to hold meetings in several prisons. Even though this new religious movement is based on the Nation of Islam and the so-called Supreme Wisdom lessons that contain a message that was shared between W. D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad, the Five Percenters took a strong stance against the doctrines of the Nation of Islam. For example, according to Allah every black man is Allah, and it is therefore impossible to submit to Allah and become a Muslim in its etymological sense. As demonstrated above, the Five Percenters do not automatically have a negative opinion of whites, and the founding father of the movement was not opposed to cooperating with whites if it was for a good cause. A woman who supports or joins the movement is generally called Earth, and because of this interpretation the Five Percenters have been accused of sexism and the degradation of women. When it comes to rituals, the Five Percenters do not pray, but have a community meeting once every month called the “parliament.” At this parliament the participants can address the group. It is also common to use numerological interpretations that are related to the teachings of the group. Additionally, the Five Percenters reject the concept of religion because in



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their understanding religion is based on unseen things (ghosts, spirits, and other transcendent deities).

Conclusions All of the groups that I have discussed in this chapter have an interrelated history and started as splinter groups that broke away from earlier organizations. As a consequence it is common to find accusations and conflicts among and between several of the Afro-American Muslim organizations included in this chapter. However, it is clear that the doctrines presented by the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and the Five Percenters are perceived as un-Islamic by the great majority of Sunni and Shia Muslims. From this point of view, they can all be labeled controversial religions. Furthermore, the doctrines and lifestyles advocated by the three new religious movements have been and still are perceived by many non-members as controversial and even dangerous, and they are seen as not contributing to a peaceful coexistence in North America. To understand the theology and ideologies they preach, however, it is necessary to pay close attention to the social and economic context of North America. Racism, discrimination and poverty among Afro-Americans is a recurring theme, and these new religious movements can all be seen as groups that offer methods and ways for improving the lives of their followers. Besides the racial framing, they are all striving to instill pride and dignity in their members. As Berg and others have pointed out, it is evident that the doctrines of the Nation of Islam are closer to Sunni and Shia Islam. It is therefore possible to see Elijah Muhammad as a reformer within the larger Islamic family. However, when it comes to the teachings of the Moorish Science Temple and the Five Percenters, it is much harder to make this connection. These movements make few if any references to Islamic textual sources and doctrines. The Five Percenters are even critical of the term “religion” and prefer to present themselves as a technique for empowering oneself. On this point, they distance themselves from Sunni and Shia doctrine. As scholars of religion, we should view the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and the Five Percenters as interesting case studies. By studying them we learn a great deal about so-called controversial movements and how their doctrines are closely interrelated with social and economic factors. For various reasons these new religious movements have generated controversy in society as well as among the majority of Sunni and Shia Muslims, and from this point of view they are case studies illustrating how different religious authorities fight over the power to interpret a specific religious tradition and to give legitimacy to new interpretations.

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Notes 1. Sunni Muslim theologians have, for example, issued fatwas against the teachings of Nation of Islam and declared that the interpretations it holds are un-Islamic. See, for example, http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=showfat wa&Option=FatwaId&Id=83361. 2. Fatwa No. 83361, Fatwa Date Rajab 11, 1422/29–2001, http://www.islamweb.net/ emainpage/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=83361. 3. Here it is important to remember that, for example, the followers of the Ahmadiyya movement looked upon their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) as a prophet. This information is of special importance because the Ahmadiyyas are of great importance for the early history of Islam in North America. See Curtis 2009b. 4. A massive amount of information on the current Nation of Islam can be found on its homepage: see http://www.noi.org/. 5. All information on the Five Percenters is taken from Knight 2008 unless otherwise indicated.

Bibliography Abdullah, Zain. 2012. “Narrating Muslim Masculinities: The Fruit of Islam and the Quest for Black Redemption.” Spectrum 1, no. 1: 141–178. Ali, Drew. No date. The Holy Koran of The Moorish Science Temple of America. Divinely prepared by the Noble Prophet Drew Ali. http://hermetic.com/moorish/7koran.html. Beal, Timothy. 2008. Religion in America: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berg, Herbert. 1999. “Elijah Muhammad and the Qur’ān: The Evolution of His Tafsīr.” The Muslim World 89, no. 1: 42–55. ———. 2005. “Mythmaking in the African American Muslim Context: The Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and the American Society of Muslims.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73, no. 3: 685–703. ———. 2006. “Early African American Muslim Movements and the Qur’an.” Journal of Qurʼanic Studies 8, no. 1: 22–37. Curtis, Edward E., IV, ed. 2008. The Columbia Sourcebook of Muslims in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2009a. Muslims in America: A Short History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2009b. “Debating the Origins of the Moorish Science Temple: Toward a New Cultural History.” In The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religions, edited by Edward E. Curtis IV and Danielle Brune Sigler, 70–90. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Dallam, Marie W. 2007. Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and his House of Prayers. New York: New York University Press.



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Fauset, Arthur Huff. 1944. Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the North. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gardell, Mattias. 1995. Countdown to Armageddon: Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam in the Latter Days. Stockholm: Stockholms Universitet. Johnson, Sylvester. 2010. “Moorish Science Temple.” In Encyclopedia of MuslimAmerican History, edited by Edward E. Curtis IV, 380–383. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Knight, Muhammad Michael. 2008. The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip Hop and the Gods of New York. Oxford: Oneworld. Malcolm X. [1965] 1968. The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. London: Penguin. Mamiya, Lawrence H. 1982. “From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The Evolution of a Movement.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religions 21, no. 2: 138–152. ———. 1995. “Nation of Islam.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, edited by John L. Esposito, 235–239. New York: Oxford University Press. Mubashshir, Debra Washington. 2001. “Forgotten Fruit of the City: Chicago and the Moorish Science Temple of America.” Cross Currents, 51, no. 1: 6–20. Muhammad, Elijah. 1965. Message to the Blackman. Philadelphia: Hakim’s Publication. Nance, Susan. 2002. “Respectability and Representation: The Moorish Science Temple, Morocco, and Black Public Culture in 1920s Chicago.” American Quarterly 54, no. 4: 623–659.

PART TWO

Asian and Asian-Inspired Traditions

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The Earth School the movement of spiritual inner awareness James R. Lewis I sat down in the back of the stony auditorium and tried to listen, but it all sounded like gibberish to me—as if he was just repeating “ham and eggs, ham and eggs” over and over again. I turned to the person nearest me, a short fellow who reminded me of Yoda from Star Wars. I asked him where I was and what the lecturer was saying. Yoda turned and faced me, gave me a stern look as if irritated that I had interrupted his concentration, and said, “You were able to get through the ten percent without a key, but you forgot about the other ninety, you dork-head.” And then turned back to continue listening to the lecture. Though he looked like Yoda, I knew it was John-Roger. Then a fellow sitting next to John-Roger, who was wearing an aviator’s cap from the early barnstorming days, turned toward me and in a mocking voice said, “You’re half-baked Mr. Eggo. You need to get cooked.” His appearance was as unfamiliar as the Yoda character’s, but I sensed he was John Morton. John pulled out a huge, tarnished old key that looked like the key to a horror movie dungeon, and, before I had a chance to react, struck me over the head with it. Startled by the abruptness of his action, I awoke to find myself tangled up in a sheet in the familiar surroundings of my own bedroom. quoted in lewis, Seeking the Light, 118–119

this vivid dream occurred a month or two after the dreamer had begun to study with the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) and marked a threshold in his understanding of the Movement. Unusually detailed, this

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dream is otherwise typical of the nocturnal experiences reported by MSIA participants. A number of elements in the dream—from the academic lecture image to Yoda’s remarks about 10% and 90%—have specialized meanings within MSIA, as reflected in the following passage from Dream Voyages by MSIA’s founder, John-Roger Hinkins: The work of MSIA is about 10 percent on the physical level and about 90 percent on the spirit side, in the realms of Light. In the dream state, which reflects your activity in the other realms of Light, there are continuous seminars going on, continuous schooling, training and learning. This training is going on all the time—twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week. If you become aware of these levels, you can consciously receive more and more information from them. You have the potential for becoming more and more aware of them and using them as part of your daily living. When you are working directly with the Mystical Traveler, as a student preparing for initiation or as an initiate into the Sound Current, you will be involved in some experiences in the night travel that will be particular to that relationship. (John-Roger 1992: 38–39) I have related the story of this dreamer’s experience as a way of providing a vivid image for what it means to be a Movement participant on a day-to-day basis. What I see as central to understanding the MSIA “path” is the notion that it is a spiritual school which, while having roots in the mystery schools of the ancient past, has been updated and adapted to the modern world. Anyone who has examined the alternative spiritual (“New Age”) subculture of which MSIA is a part is aware that the discourses used by participants in this milieu are saturated with educational images. The MSIA is a reasonably typical manifestation of this pattern. The current chapter will survey MSIA and its schism-prone predecessor movements, provide a brief history, and glance at Movement beliefs and practices. The latter part of the chapter will also examine the claim that MSIA and Eckankar (the latter is a related group) are plagiarisms of prior movements. Finally, I will conclude by further explicating the theme of the educational discourse and the educational practices that inform this brand of spirituality.

Movement Background: Radhasoami and Eckankar Sant Mat is a sampradaya—a school of religious teaching transmitted through a line of gurus—that, at least traditionally, did not seek to establish itself as a



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separate religion. The Sant teacher Ramananda, for example, stayed within the Hindu fold, while Kabir, perhaps history’s most famous Sant master, remained a faithful Muslim. Although Sant Mat arose in North India during the late Indian Middle Ages, the core meditation technique of the school, Surat Shabd Yoga, or Nad Yoga, appears to be much more ancient. The most prominent contemporary Sant Mat lineage is the Radha Soami (or Radhasoami) movement, and the largest contemporary organization in that lineage is the Radha Soami Satsang, Beas (Juergensmeyer 1991; Lane 1992). The notion that God is light and sound is a core doctrine of the Sant Mat tradition. Rather like Western Gnosticism, Sant Mat teaches that the cosmos is a multilevel emanation in which human souls are trapped, and that the spiritual aspirant needs a series of words or names keyed to each of the lower levels in order to move through these levels and reach the divine source. There are five lower levels, for which one therefore requires five words. A sound current (a “river” of vibration; alternately pictured as a ray of light) from the higher levels—an emanation from the high God—flows down through all of the lower levels. A living guru imparts five secret names (the simram) to the aspirant at the time of initiation. Contemplating the sound current and the inner light (the visual aspect of the divine sound) with the master’s guidance allows the individual to follow the sound back to the source from which it emanated (the Supreme Being), resulting in spiritual liberation. Those who follow the system must live according to a code of behavior that includes vegetarianism, abstinence from alcohol, and high moral character. Two and a half hours per day are set aside for meditation. Radha Soami has been the source of a number of new religious movements. New splinter groups have often arisen out of disputes over who should be the new leader following the death of a guru. One of the more important of these splinter groups was Kirpal Singh’s Ruhani Satasang. Kirpal Singh’s followers, in turn, splintered repeatedly following his death. Kirpal Singh was also one of Paul Twitchell’s teachers, and a number of observers have pointed out that Eckankar’s sound current practices derive from Kirpal Singh’s teachings. Rather than claiming Kirpal Singh’s lineage, Twitchell asserted that in 1956 he experienced God-realization when he was initiated by a group of spiritual masters he referred to as the “Order of the Vairagi Masters,” who were said to live and work on a spiritual plane linked to the mystic East. Twitchell further claimed that he was assigned the role of 971st Living Eck Master by these higher spiritual beings. Twitchell officially organized and incorporated Eckankar in 1965. For the next few years he wrote and published several key books of Eckankar theology.

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Twitchell died unexpectedly in 1971. His wife Gail, together with the board of Eckankar, chose his successor as 972nd Living Eck Master—Darwin Gross. Gross and Gail married shortly afterwards. Under their leadership Eckankar grew and flourished. Its new headquarters was established at Menlo Park, California. Subsequently there was a struggle for leadership in which Gross was deposed and succeeded as 973rd Living Eck Master by Harold Klemp. Eckankar studiously tried to avoid controversy in the media. However, during the initial phase of moving its headquarters and building the Temple of Eck in Minnesota, some citizens of the city of Chanhassen attempted (unsuccessfully) to prevent the city council from permitting it to be built. Within Eckankar there was controversy when Twitchell died and was succeeded by Gross and again when Gross was replaced by Klemp. There was lengthy and complicated litigation between Gross and Eckankar over use of the term itself as well as other related terms used by the organization (which Eckankar had copyrighted). Another sort of criticism has been that Twitchell plagiarized many of his writings from other authors, particularly Julian Johnson, as will be discussed below.

Overview of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness The MSIA was founded by John-Roger Hinkins (informally referred to as “J-R”) in 1971. In certain ways, MSIA is a metaphysical church, but it is also often classified as “New Age” and its sound current practices are clearly in the Sant Mat tradition, broadly conceived. Although MSIA teachings reflect a blend of different traditions, the organization regards itself as a mystical Christian group, and in its literature explicitly asserts that “Jesus Christ is the head of the Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness” (Lewis 2009: 240). Born Roger Hinkins in 1934 to a Mormon family in Rains, Utah, Hinkins received his Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at the University of Utah. In 1958, he moved to southern California, where he became an English teacher at Rosemead High School. In 1963, while undergoing surgery, he fell into a nine-day coma. Upon awakening, he discovered that a new spiritual personality, named John, had merged with his old personality. The hyphenated name, John-Roger, represents this transformed self. Around the time of his coma, Hinkins had been a seeker exploring a variety of different spiritual teachings, including the Agasha Temple of ­ Wisdom founded and lead by Reverend Richard Zenor (1911–1978), correspondence courses of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), and Eckankar (Introvigne 1998). Because of his marginal participation in



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Eckankar, outside observers have assumed that he derived the Sant Mat side of his teachings from that movement. John-Roger began to teach and counsel informally and, by the late 1960s, held gatherings as an independent spiritual teacher. In 1971, he formally incorporated the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. He also founded a number of additional organizations out of MSIA, including Prana (now Peace) Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy (1977), Baraka Holistic Center (1977), and Insight Seminars (1978). The John-Roger Foundation was created in 1982 in order to coordinate the several programs initiated by the MSIA. The foundation initiated the Integrity Day celebrations, an effort to promote global transformation through the enrichment and upliftment of individuals. Beginning in 1983, the foundation held an annual Integrity Award banquet, giving awards to individuals for their achievement, until 1988. MSIA teaches the idea that the individual soul incarnates on the physical, material world to learn its true nature—which stands in sharp contrast to the traditional Radhasoami teaching that individuals are trapped in this world and must seek to escape. In the group’s own words, “MSIA teaches Soul Transcendence, which is becoming aware of yourself as a Soul and as one with God, not as a theory but as a living reality. MSIA offers an approach to living that focuses on how to incorporate spirituality into your everyday life” (MSIA 1999). In common with other Sant Mat groups, MSIA pictures the cosmos as composed of many different levels or planes. Originally, these levels evolved from God along a vibratory “stream” until creation reached its terminus in the physical plane. The Sant Mat tradition teaches that individuals can be linked to God’s creative energy, and that this stream of energy will carry them back to God. The Mystical Traveler Consciousness—a key MSIA concept that is said to have originally manifested through John-Roger—accomplishes this link-up during initiation. (In 1988, the mantle of the Mystical Traveler consciousness was passed to John Morton, one of John-Roger’s students.) Once this initial link is made, however, the individual gains its benefits through the practice of various spiritual exercises, particularly the repetition of the mantra “Hu” and the chanting of other sacred initiatory names of God. Each individual is seen as being involved in a movement of spiritual inner awareness, of which the MSIA is an outward reflection. Individuals who wish to develop a total awareness, including freedom from the cycle of reincarnation, seek the assistance of the Mystical Traveler, who is believed to exist ­simultaneously on all levels of consciousness in total awareness. The consciousness teaches them how to reach awareness and assists them in understanding and releasing themselves from their karmic responsibilities, and has the ability to read the karmic records of each individual.

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Some of the several New Age healing techniques focusing on different aspects of the self have been adopted by the MSIA. These include “aura balancing,” which is a technique for clearing the auric (magnetic) field that exists around each individual; “innerphasings,” a technique through which the individual can reach into the subconscious and bring to consciousness and remove the dysfunctional patterns learned early in life; and “polarity balancing,” which releases blocks in the physical body. What might be termed membership in the MSIA is accomplished when the individual is enrolled in a series of monthly lessons, referred to as Soul Awareness Discourses. After studying the Discourses for specified periods of time, an individual may apply successively for the four formal initiations that mark a person’s spiritual progress. Independently of the initiation structure, one may also become an MSIA minister. The basic MSIA gathering is the home seminar. MSIA ministers do not normally minister to congregations; rather, they are involved in some type of service work, which constitutes their ministry. In 1978, John-Roger and Russell Bishop developed Insight Training Seminars (Insight Seminars), a program built around an intense transformational experience. The Insight seminars emphasize the individual’s ability to move beyond self-imposed limitations. Insight became a separate organization, independent of MSIA, in 1978. Insight claims that over one million people around the world have participated in the seminars since their inception. Insight is clearly related to Erhard Seminars Training (est), though est has been far more controversial. John-Roger founded the University of Santa Monica (USM), which has also developed into a separate institution that offers a Soul-Centered Graduate Curriculum through the principles and practices of Spiritual Psychology. A second educational institution, Peace Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy (PTS), on the other hand, has become an integral part of the MSIA outreach. Today, PTS is the primary setting for MSIA seminars and workshops.

Controversy As the anti-cult movement (ACM) developed in the 1970s, it paid little attention to MSIA, which at the time was a small group compared to the more visible religious groups that had called the ACM into existence. However, in 1988 the Los Angeles Times and then People magazine attacked MSIA. Criticism centered on charges by former staff members that John-Roger had sexually exploited them, a charge John-Roger denied. After the issues were aired, the controversy largely died. Then in 1994, the MSIA was again the subject of



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media attention when multimillionaire Michael Huffington ran for the United States Senate and it was learned that Arianna Huffington, his wife, was an MSIA member. About the same time, Peter McWilliams, an MSIA minister who had coauthored a series of popular books with John-Roger, dropped out of the movement and authored a bitter anti-MSIA book, LIFE 102: What to Do When Your Guru Sues You, which attracted some media attention. The hubbub around the Huffingtons also led MSIA and John-Roger to be featured in the satirical cartoon strip, Doonesbury, for a few weeks. A more interesting line of criticism was developed by a college professor who was himself a onetime initiate in the Radhasoami tradition, David Christopher Lane. With the exception of a couple of reference book entries and survey pieces (e.g., Olsen 1995), Lane has been the only academician to publish on Eckankar and, until the present writer started studying the group in the 1990s, MSIA as well. His principal treatment of MSIA is contained in his 1984 essay, “The JR Controversy,” later incorporated into his 1994 book, Exposing Cults. It is to this latter source that I will refer in the following paragraphs. Following an overheated introduction in which he hurls accusation after accusation at John-Roger—even going so far as to call upon members to defect from MSIA—Lane makes reference to the “transpersonal theorist” Ken Wilber, whose analysis of spiritual legitimacy and authenticity is the basis for his critique of John-Roger. The problem with using Wilber’s theoretical structure, however, is that Wilber is an explicitly “spiritual” thinker, whose writings belong to the emic rather than to the etic realm. Building one’s discussion around Ken Wilber is, in other words, roughly comparable to utilizing the thought of Walter Martin (an Evangelical critic) as the basis for analyzing the LDS Church. The most relevant section is entitled “J.R. is a Plagiarist,” a title that casts the issue in the boldest possible terms. After pointing out a number of parallels— such as the correspondences between Eckankar’s cosmology and MSIA’s cosmology, John-Roger’s 1981 adoption of a set of affirmations from a 1925 book, and the supposed transposition of an obscure Radhasoami term (Sarmad) for an Eckankar term (Sugmad)—Lane blasts John-Roger as a “plagiarist,” guilty of “religious shoplifting.” He concludes this section of his analysis with the assertion that “John-Roger appears to have a proclivity for taking other teachings, writings, and practices and developing them as his own,” and characterizes MSIA as a “potpourri of unoriginal spiritual teachings” (1994: 109–110). Despite the fury of his onslaught, it is nevertheless clear that Lane’s attack is based less upon flaws in Hinkins’s teachings than on his own prior analysis of Paul Twitchell’s writings, which really were heavily plagiarized.

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Although Twitchell appropriated passages from a wide variety of authors, he was most indebted to Julian Johnson, an early twentieth-century disciple of the Radhasoami guru, Baba Sawan Singh. In Lane’s words: The overall influence that Johnson’s books—The Path of the Masters and With a Great Master in India, in particular—had on Twitchell’s own spiritual writings is truly remarkable. Twitchell not only borrowed and learned from the book, he also copied it . . . word for word. The striking similarities between Twitchell’s work and Johnson’s earlier writings are astounding. Three of Twitchell’s books The Tiger’s Fang, Letters to Gail (both volumes) and Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad appear to contain almost verbatim excerpts from Johnson’s 1939 work, The Path of the Masters. Yet, it is Twitchell’s 1966 book, The Far Country, that raises the serious question of his originality. This work contains well over 400 paragraphs from Johnson’s two books, The Path of the Masters and With a Great Master in India, without so much as a single reference to them. (Lane 2008: 124) Twitchell’s literary plagiarisms were pervasive, blatant, and undeniable. Eckists (Eckankar followers) have developed various responses to Lane’s critique that might be persuasive to insiders—for example, that Johnson and Twitchell drew their writings from the same spiritual source on the inner planes—but not to outsiders.1 In sharp contrast, none of MSIA’s writings were plagiarized. Instead, Lane accuses Hinkins of being a plagiarist simply because of parallels between MSIA’s and Eckankar’s teachings and practices. However, it does not require much reflection to perceive the illogic of this line of argumentation. In the first place, it is difficult to imagine how one could possibly distinguish religious plagiarism from other kinds of transmissions of religious ideas and practices. For the sake of discussion, imagine a minority group in the First Baptist Church who objected to something their church was doing, and who subsequently decided to go off and start a new church—the Second Baptist Church. After a month or so, someone from First Baptist decides to go over and spy on Second Baptist, and discovers that the new schism has “plagiarized” almost everything from the original congregation. They use the same Bible (even printed by the same publishing company, without changing so much as a single word), and they even talk about the same Jesus dying for their sins. As ludicrous as this example may seem, it elucidates the fundamental error in Lane’s critique. Whatever John-Roger and MSIA might or might not be guilty of, it is not plagiarism.



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Educational Images To return to the educational theme with which I began this chapter, MSIA inhabits the alternative spiritual milieu that was formerly referred to as the New Age movement. After the New Age became a hot topic in the late 1980s and the news media featured story after story focusing on the most superficial aspects of this milieu, the great majority of participants distanced themselves from the term—certainly, MSIA would never describe itself as New Age. Academic researchers have, however, retained the term as an etic category, for reasons I have discussed elsewhere (Lewis 1992: 1–3). So despite certain drawbacks, I will utilize the term here. Like other religious and cultural systems, the worldview of the contemporary New Age movement is held together by a shared set of symbols and ­metaphors—shared images of life reflected in the discourse of participants as a set of commonly used terms. For example, due in part to a vision of metaphysical unity inherited from Theosophy and from Asian religious ­ ­philosophy—but also due to this subculture’s reaction against the perceived fragmentation and alienation of mainstream society—the New Age movement emphasizes the values of unity and relatedness. These values find expression in such common terms as “holistic,” “oneness,” “wholeness,” and “community.” This spiritual subculture also values growth and dynamism— an evaluation expressed in discourses about “evolution,” “transformation,” “process,” and so forth. The image of education is related to the growth metaphor (e.g., one of our linguistic conventions is that education allows a person to “grow”). If we examine the metaphysical subculture through the lens of the education theme, we discover that, in contrast to many other religious movements, the dominant New Age “ceremonies” are workshops, lectures, and classes rather than worship ceremonies. Even large New Age gatherings such as the Whole Life Expo resemble academic conferences more than they resemble camp meetings. It is also interesting to note the extent to which educational metaphors inform New Age thought. In terms of the way the Western metaphysical tradition has interpreted the ongoing process of reincarnation, spiritual growth, and even life itself are learning experiences. To cite some of examples of this, Katar, a New Age medium, channels such messages as, “Here on Earth, you are your teacher, your books, your lessons and the classroom as well as the student” (Clark 1988: 7). This message is amplified by J. L. Simmons, a sociologist, who, in his The Emerging New Age, describes life on the physical plane as the “Earth School” (1990: 91) and asserts that “we are here to learn . . . and will continue to return until we ‘do the course’ and ‘graduate’” (73).

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Similar images are reflected in an essay on “The Role of the Esoteric in Planetary Culture,” where David Spangler argues that spiritual wisdom is esoteric “only because so few people expend the time, the energy, the effort, the openness and the love to gain it, just as only a few are willing to invest what is required to become a nuclear physicist or a neurosurgeon” (Spangler 1977: 193–194). It would not be going too far to assert that, in the New Age vision of things, the image of the whole of human life—particularly when that life is directed toward spiritual goals—can be summed up as a learning experience: Each of us has an Inner Teacher, a part of ourselves which knows exactly what we need to learn, and constantly creates the opportunity for us to learn just that. We have the choice either to cooperate with this part of ourselves or to ignore it. If we decide to cooperate, we can see lessons constantly in front of us; every challenge is a chance to grow and develop. If, on the other hand, we try to ignore this Inner Teacher, we can find ourselves hitting the same problem again and again, because we are not perceiving and responding to the lesson we have created for ourselves. [It] is, however, the daily awareness of and cooperation with spirit [that] pulls humanity upwards on the evolutionary spiral, and the constant invocation and evocation of spirit enables a rapid unfolding of human potential. When the Inner Teacher and the evolutionary force of the Universe are able to work together with our full cooperation, wonders unfold. (Findhorn Foundation 1986) In this passage, we see not only the decisive role of the educational metaphor but also how this metaphor has itself been reshaped by the emphasis on holism and growth. In other words, the kind of education this subculture values is the education of “the whole person,” sometimes termed “holistic education,” and this form of education is an expression of the “evolutionary force of the Universe” (a parallel to what, in more traditional language, might be called the redemptive activity of the Holy Spirit). Thus, despite the marked tendency to deploy images drawn from the sphere of formal education—a tendency that has created a realm of discourse saturated with metaphors of “classrooms,” “graduations,” and the like—the metaphysical subculture’s sense of the educational process has tended to be more informal (more or less equivalent to learning in the general sense), as well as more continuous—a process from which there may be periodic graduations, but from which there is never a final graduation after which the learning process ceases. As part of this process orientation, life in the body is viewed much less negatively than in the South Asian religious traditions from which MSIA and



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the New Age draws inspiration. Instead, life in this body is affirmed as an opportunity for soul growth, in the sense that the soul, which is seen as perfect but inexperienced, is on earth to learn lessons and gain experience. Whereas certain phases of Hinduism’s and early Buddhism’s central metaphors suggest the reduction, extraction, dissolution, and eventual elimination of self, MSIA’s core images suggest that the spiritual life is a process of exploration, expansion, and learning. This process takes place across many different lifetimes. Thus, in contrast with traditional Hinduism and Buddhism—which view reincarnation negatively, as a cycle of suffering out of which one must strive to liberate oneself— in MSIA and the contemporary metaphysical subculture more generally, reincarnation is viewed positively, as a series of lessons for which we return to the “earth school” over and over again. Similarly, the traditional idea of karma, the moral law of cause and effect that is an integral part of the Asian conceptualization of reincarnation, is reinterpreted within the metaphysical subculture as providing “karmic lessons.” A widely assumed principle is that some conscious force or intelligent entity (guardian angels, Lords of Karma or some functional equivalent) is able to regulate the effects of one’s karma so that each new challenge provides the individual with a growth opportunity—a ­potential “learning experience.” The earth has been designated as the classroom where you learn lessons. [Y]ou’re . . . in a continual learning process, which will bring forth that which is for your highest good. When you have finished your lessons, you graduate to other levels of consciousness. (John-Roger, cited in Lewis 1997: 116)

Concluding Remarks To conclude, joining a movement such as MSIA is rather like enrolling in school rather than converting to a religion in a traditional sense. This is because contemporary, metaphysically oriented spiritual groups explicitly adopt the structures and vocabularies of educational institutions. 1.  First, the MSIA presents it teachings via a wide variety of classes and workshops. In fact, this educational outreach is MSIA’s major activity. It should be noted, however, even in “classes,” “seminars,” and “workshops,” much less stress is placed on purely theoretical or intellectual knowledge than one would find in a mainstream educational setting. As a consequence, MSIA

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classes tend to consist of about one-third information and about two-thirds interaction with others, sharing with the group, or some form of spiritual exercise. 2.   Second, merely being a member of the MSIA is viewed as an ongoing educational experience. Thus becoming affiliated with MSIA is comparable to enrolling in a university (“joining a mystery school”), and the experiences one has while participating in Movement activities—as well as the experiences one encounters in one’s life more generally—are viewed as part of one’s course of study. In the words of one of MSIA’s participants: MSIA is the most highly evolved and true “spiritual school” that I have ever seen, heard of, or read about. There are many beautiful religions out there, [but] I’ve found that no “teaching” can compare with one’s personal experience of the light and love of the Holy Spirit, God, Christ, Traveler. (cited in Lewis 1997: 126)

Notes In certain sections of this chapter I have drawn from some of my prior publications, especially Lewis 1997, 2003, Tumminia and Lewis 2013, and from my unpublished paper, “Claim-Jumping in the Soul Realm.” A special word of thanks to Mark Lurie, who was the primary contact during my original research project on MSIA almost twenty years ago, and who assisted me with certain parts of the current chapter. 1. I am uncomfortable writing these words because I have had a number of close friends over the years I deeply respect who were also Eckists. I met these individuals and made contact with the Eckankar organization back when I lived in the Midwest during the first decade of this century. Though otherwise friendly, the organization resisted my several attempts over the years to study their membership. As a consequence of this ill-conceived policy, the only secondary literature on Eckankar consists of analyses of Twitchell’s plagiarisms, and nothing on the many wonderful people who follow the Eckankar path.

Bibliography Clark [“channeled” by Katar]. 1988. “Back to School—Earth Revisited.” Open Channel: A Journal with Spirit 2 (November–December). Findhorn Foundation. 1986. Catalog. Autumn–Winter 1986–1987. Introvigne, Massimo. 1998. “The Origins of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA),” http://www.cesnur.org/testi/msia.htm.



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John-Roger. 1992. Dream Voyages. Los Angeles: Mandeville Press. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1991. Radhasoami Reality: The Logic of Modern Faith. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Lane, David Christopher. 1992. The Radhasoami Tradition: A Critical History of Guru Successorship. New York: Garland, 1992. ———. 1994. Exposing Cults: When the Skeptical Mind Confronts the Mystical. New York: Garland ———. 2008. “Eckankar.” In Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, Vol. 3, edited by Eugene V. Gallagher and W. Michael Ashcraft, 113–131. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Lewis, James R. 1992. “Approaches to the Study of the New Age Movement.” In Perspectives on the New Age, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 1–12. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 1997. Seeking the Light. Los Angeles: Mandeville Press. ———. 2003. Legitimating New Religions. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ———. 2009. “Did Jesus Die for our Karma? Christology and Atonement in a Contemporary Metaphysical Church.” In Alternative Christs, edited by Olav Hammer, 240–255. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MSIA. 1999. An Introduction to The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. Los Angeles: Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy. Olson, Roger E. “ECKANKAR: From Ancient Science of Soul Travel to New Age Religion.” In America’s Alternative Religions, edited by Timothy Miller, 363–370. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Simmons, J. L. 1990. The Emerging New Age. Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Co. Spangler, David. 1977. “The Role of the Esoteric in Planetary Culture.” In Earth’s Answer: Explorations of Planetary Culture at the Lindisfarne Conferences, edited by Michael Katz, William P. Marsh, and Gail Gordon Thompson, 190–204. New York: Harper & Row. Tumminia, Diana, and James R. Lewis. 2013. A Study of the Movement of Spiritual Awareness: Religious Innovation and Cultural Change. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan

9

Contested Genealogies and CrossCultural Dynamics in the Hare Krishna Movement Malcolm Haddon

The Question of Origins When and where to begin the story of Hare Krishna? I could begin by tracing the genealogy of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON, or the Hare Krishna movement) back to the long established tradition of Krishna devotionalism to which its founding leader, the Bengali Vaisnava renunciate A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), belonged in India. ISKCON devotees themselves trace their sacred genealogy, through Prabhupada and the Bengali Vaisnava tradition, all the way back to Lord Krishna (God) Himself. As an outside observer, I can tentatively concede there is a historical Indian tradition which Prabhupada represented. Alternatively, I could begin closer to home and with a more recent history. Acknowledging that religious movements come into existence as movements, not on account of individual leaders, but on account of the following that makes them, a sociological account would have to place ISKCON’s genesis squarely in the midst of the North American counterculture of the late 1960s (Judah 1974a). As one of the classic cases in the study of new religious movements in the West, ISKCON’s genesis has generally been treated as a Western sociological phenomenon in this latter sense, notwithstanding the high regard in which this scholarship has generally held Prabhupada’s traditional religious authority. There is always much at stake in myths of origin, and the past can be told in any number of ways in service of the present. During times of crisis especially, questions of origins and claims to genealogical inheritance can become



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highly contested. The vexed question as to whether ISKCON constitutes a “new” religion, or not, depends entirely on which version of cultural origins are chosen in order to begin its story (Melton 2004; Barker 2004). It is a question which has had political, legal, and sectarian consequences throughout the life of ISKCON. This is why I approach the question of origins with some caution. As a further qualification, the question concerning ISKCON’s cultural origins—Indian or American, old or new—is further complicated by the fact that there has been continual traffic back and forth between India and America (and other Western countries in which ISKCON subsequently established a presence) ever since the movement was established in the West. This cross-cultural traffic continues to be a source of creative tension in ISKCON today. For this reason, the transnational Hare Krishna movement today cannot be understood entirely within a Western sociological frame. Nor can essentialist, ahistorical notions of Indian tradition be relied on to account for its religious origins. What is needed is a more sophisticated understanding of ISKCON’s cross-cultural development on all accounts.

Historical Legitimation Fortunately, academic studies were made of ISKCON in the earliest days of the movement’s formation in America (Judah 1974a, b; Daner 1976; Hopkins 1983). In relation to Prabhupada’s life in India, there is only the hagiographic account to draw upon. Prabhupada’s official biography, Srila Prabhupada-­ lilamrta (“The Transcendental Pastimes of Srila Prabhupada”), was written by one of Prabhupada’s early American disciples (Goswami 1993). A sacred text in ISKCON in its own right, the Lilamrta also provides a detailed chronicle of ISKCON’s formative years, and it holds “a mine of information for scholars and to anyone else interested in the movement Prabhupada brought to America from India, and in the counterculture itself, the social milieu in which the movement took root and flourished in its early years” (Judah 1993). Indeed, this source has been mined frequently by researchers in providing historical accounts of ISKCON’s origins. This admittedly makes it difficult sometimes to distinguish history from hagiography when reading the story of ISKCON. Prabhupada’s life in India is covered in the first of the six volumes of the Lilamrta. Born into a middle-class Calcuttan family in 1896, Abhay Charan De received a good education, married, and ran a small pharmaceutical business before retiring from householder life in 1950 and finally committing himself full-time to the mission of his spiritual master. Prabhupada first met his guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur (1874–1937), in 1922, and received initiation from him eleven years later in 1933. Bhaktisiddhanta was a

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key figure in the Gaudiya Math sampradaya, a Bengali Vaisnava school or lineage which originated as a late nineteenth-century revival of the Caitanya movement led by Bhaktisiddhanta’s father, Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur (1838– 1914), a former magistrate in the colonial administration (Hopkins 1989). The Caitanya movement that Bhaktivinode Thakur sought to modernize and revitalize is a 500-year-old popular bhakti or devotionalist tradition which holds the Bengali saint Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1533) to be the yuga avatara, Lord Krishna’s incarnation (avatara) for the present age. The Caitanya avatara is Krishna Himself, revealing by His own demonstration how to be a devotee of Krishna by propagating the mahamantra—the “great mantra of deliverance” Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare—as the yuga-dharma, the only true path to salvation during the present age. On a more esoteric level, Caitanya is also understood to be the “dual incarnation” of Krishna and Radha in the one person (Tuck 1985). Radha is Krishna’s cowherd girl (gopi) consort, and in the personalistic, dualistic theology of Bengali Vaisnavism, Radha’s intimate divine relationship with Krishna among the fields and forests of Vrindavana represents the highest and most mysterious form of love of God. Much of the sophisticated doctrinal elaboration of the Bengali Vaisnava tradition, notably the writings of the Six Goswamis of Vrindavana, had focused on the spiritual process of cultivating love of God in the mood of Radha and Her gopi companions (Stewart 1992). An intellectual and an innovator, Bhaktivinode Thakur is said to have prophesied that “people of all nationalities” (Knott 2000: 154) would be attracted to the message of Caitanya, and that the modern-day medium for Caitanya’s message would be the printed word. Bhaktivinode’s son, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, bequeathed his father’s vision to his own disciple, Srila Prabhupada, by assigning him the task of translating the Vaisnava canon into English. On taking his vows of renunciation in 1959, Prabhupada set to work on translating the 18,000 verses of the Bhagavata Purana (SrimadBhagavatam) while living as an ascetic in the holy town of Vrindavana in northern India. Finally, in 1965, at the already advanced age of 69 and fast running out of time to fulfill his spiritual master’s directive, Prabhupada set off for America aboard the cargo steamer Jaladuta, with little more than a suitcase packed with his as-yet incomplete translations. The next five volumes of the Lilamrta cover the years 1965 to 1977, which are the first twelve years of ISKCON’s development as a religious movement, and the final twelve years of Prabhupada’s life. In a pivotal image which evocatively captures the moment of ISKCON’s cross-cultural genesis, the second volume of the Lilamrta begins with a depiction of Prabhupada, an elderly



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Bengali saddhu dressed in traditional robes, alone and penniless on a dock in New York Harbor, having just survived a trans-Atlantic passage during which he suffered two heart attacks, setting forth on a one-man mission to propagate the Holy Name of Krishna throughout the English-speaking world (Goswami 1993). This is the hagiographic version of the origin myth. History also tells us that 1965 was the year that the United States rescinded the Oriental ­Exclusion Act, and on this historical level, Prabhupada’s arrival must be understood as part of a larger wave of Indian migration to the United States which, among the vastly more numerous number of economic migrants looking for American success, included many spiritual teachers hoping to ride the wave of Western countercultural enthusiasm for Eastern spirituality (Melton 1989: 90). As might be expected, the hagiography puts all these converging historical factors down to divine providence (Rosen 1992: 58). Whichever way we read it, there is no question that Prabhupada landed in America at the right time and in the right place. After six months finding his feet in New York, Prabhupada officially instituted ISKCON in 1966 and established his first temple in a small rented shopfront in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, right in the middle of a flourishing American counterculture. Taking his message to the streets, Prabhupada’s first American disciples were recruited from the same pool of young Americans who found themselves, due to a complex of sociological, political, and economic factors, free to experiment in a “social laboratory” of lifestyles, drugs, sexualities, and exotic forms of religion (Melton 1995: 268). Typically, they were the hippies who had dropped out or, the story goes, disaffected hippies who had burned out. In this respect, ISKCON in its nascence was an essentially American countercultural phenomenon (Judah 1974a). It appeared at the same time as the many other religious movements that collectively comprised the new religious kaleidoscope of the times. ISKCON’s rapid expansion from East to West coasts of the United States, and from there to other Western countries, followed the spread of other countercultural American influences during this same period. As he traveled, Prabhupada’s new disciples introduced him to some of the key countercultural figures of the times—Allen Ginsberg, The Beatles (George Harrison especially was close supporter), and other famous names—undoubtedly helping to raise the public profile of the movement. Before long, the sights and sounds of Hare Krishna devotees dancing and chanting “Hare Krishna” through the streets would become a recognizable feature of the countercultural landscape. A cultural critic might be tempted to discount ISKCON as merely one among the “many Eastern sects, philosophies, and wisdoms domesticated for

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local. . . . use” during this high period of spiritual Orientalism (Said 1978: 4; cf. Cox 1977). This reading would locate ISKCON within a long tradition of the West’s discursive “domestication” of foreign religions. Yet the Orientalist critique, such a familiar refrain in postcolonial scholarship, has been notably absent in scholarly renditions of the ISKCON story. To the contrary, there has been an unquestioned consensus among academic observers that Prabhupada was himself a genuine, religiously qualified, respect-worthy representative of the 500-year-old Bengali Vaisnava tradition. In some versions of this account, ISKCON’s genealogy is traced back even further, to an “ancient” “Vedic” tradition (e.g., Daner 1976; Nye 2001: 8). The sense conveyed in these accounts is that this respect for tradition can and should be extended to our assessment of Prabhupada’s Western followers: American, British, Australian, or European converts they may be, but as disciples of Prabhupada, they are inheritors and bearers of this “ancient religious tradition” (Nye 2001: 8). In none of these readings of the ISKCON story has there ever been any attempt to understand how this “traditionalist” discourse is itself prefigured by a colonial and postcolonial history (Dalmia and von Stirtencron 1995), or how “the West” has historically figured as the imagined addressee of this discourse (King 1978), long before Prabhupada embarked on his mission to America. Nevertheless, this traditionalist version of the story has been told to good effect throughout the life of ISKCON. It has been an especially useful response to outside hostility and at moments of potential conflict between ISKCON and the law. At different times in ISKCON’s history, for instance, sympathetic scholars willing to testify to ISKCON’s traditional religious credentials have helped devotees seek deferment from the draft during the Vietnam War (Judah 1974a: 17), defended devotees against the legal offensives launched by the anti-cult movement during the 1980s (Shinn 1987), and, more recently, lent support to ISKCON’s cause during local planning disputes (Nye 2001). In each of these cases, authoritative scholarly reference to ISKCON’s authentic Indian origins has supported the movement’s defense on the grounds of religious freedom. One is led to doubt if the same level of support would have been extended if these scholars regarded ISKCON as “just another quasi-Indian import” (Shinn 1987: 10). Yet the value-laden distinction between “genuine” and “quasi” Indian religion rests on implicit notions of genealogical inheritance and cultural copyright which are surely open to all kinds of contestation (Povinelli 2006). The argument that the Indian religious tradition to which Prabhupada belonged has been faithfully reproduced by his Western disciples may serve a legitimate strategic purpose when it comes to legitimating ISKCON’s existence in



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the face of hostile public reaction (Knott 2000: 156–157; Baird 1988: 159–165; Michael 1989: 195; Lewis 2003). But the argument belies the fact that the most contested sectarian issues to have arisen within the Hare Krishna movement itself have concerned precisely this problem of genealogy.

Contested Genealogies In his very early notes on the nascent ISKCON, Hopkins expressed his disappointment at finding that the movement’s first recruits knew virtually nothing of the Indian origins of their newly found beliefs and practices (Hopkins 1967, cited in Hopkins 1983). Their only “India connection” was the person of Prabhupada himself. To be sure, this is no reflection on ­Prabhupada, but it does put the question of the movement’s origins into cultural perspective. Quite unlike the Indian tradition, the nascent ISKCON was a movement of converts, and the tradition which Prabhupada represented did not simply offer itself up to his Western followers at the moment of their conversion to ISKCON. That discovery can only occur through a process of religious instruction, mediated through the interpersonal and pedagogical nexus of the master–disciple relationship, and supported by ritual routines and institutional structures which, in ISKCON’s case, were all developed in (or against) a Western cultural milieu and quite independently of any influence, outside of Prabhupada himself, from the tradition in India. Hopkins was later pleased to observe that ISKCON did in fact develop, in a remarkably short period of time, ritually complex forms of practice which he could recognize as deriving from the Indian tradition (Hopkins 1969, cited in Hopkins 1983). This is clearly a testament to Prabhupada’s methods of religious instruction, especially considering Prabhupada is accredited with personally initiating more than 5,000 disciples across several countries in the twelve short years spanning his arrival in America in 1965 to his death in India in 1977. But while he made every effort to travel continuously and visit all the outposts of his growing international movement during that time, it was not possible for Prabhupada to personally oversee the religious instruction of each of these thousands of new disciples. While formal initiation (diksa) by Prabhupada linked the disciple to the spiritually empowered line of disciplic succession (parampara) ultimately leading back to Krishna, most of the work of religious instruction (siksa) was undertaken at the level of the local temple under the supervision of senior devotees. All ISKCON members in the early days were expected to submit to the strictly ascetic life of celibate students (brahmacarya) and to worship and live together in the intensely regimented communal environment of the temple

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ashram (Daner 1976; Rochford 1982, 1985, 2000). A heavy regimen of religious instruction was supported by a focus on textual pedagogy (Haddon 2013), with every new installment of Prabhupada’s prolific output of writings, translations, commentaries, letters, or transcribed lectures immediately entering the canon of a­ bsolute doctrinal authority (Prabhupada’s completed corpus would be “the law books for the next ten thousand years”). Bureaucratic forms of management were also introduced relatively early on, with the Governing Body Commission (GBC) established to administer Prabhupada’s directives and attend to matters of business for the organization as a whole. Local temples and farm communities were to be independent economic and administrative units under the management of a Temple President, while still receiving religious direction from Prabhupada and the GBC (Rochford 1985, 1989). While consolidating Prabhupada’s religious authority across a growing international movement, these institutional structures and bureaucratic forms of management can also be seen as a way of pre-empting the inevitable “crisis of succession” to be effected by the death of ISKCON’s charismatic leader (remembering that Prabhupada was already an elderly man when he first arrived ­America). I will address this critical question of succession shortly. However, without diminishing the devastating impact of that crisis, it is important to note that the problem of genealogical transmission in ISKCON actually began to surface before Prabhupada’s death in 1977. The problem to which I refer in fact appeared as a consequence of the devotees’ increased knowledge of, and direct exposure to, the living tradition of Gaudiya Vaisnavism in India, a tradition with other living teachers and other possible sources for the transmission of traditional authority. As early as 1967, Prabhupada returned to India with a small entourage of his first disciples (his “dancing white elephants” as he fondly referred to his discordant band of Western converts) (Goswami 1993). It was here that Prabhupada’s disciples first met Prabhupada’s godbrothers, senior respected figures in the Gaudiya Math with an equally unassailable claim on traditional authority, and figures who would later emerge as key antagonists in the sectarian dramas which have troubled ISKCON ever since Prabhupada’s death (Rochford 2009). By 1975, still during Prabhupada’s time, ISKCON had established the Krishna-Balarama temple complex in the midst of the sacred Krishna pilgrimage town of Vrindavana in northern India (Prabhupada’s ­samadhi, or sacred tomb, was added to the complex two years later). As Brooks’s (1989) study of ISKCON’s “integration” into this sacred heartland of Krishna devotionalism reveals, the establishment of the Vrindavana temple opened up to ISKCON devotees a wealth of alternative cultural resources with



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which to access the Indian tradition. Brooks found that while ISKCON devotees were soon accepted in Vrindavana as sincere and genuine devotees of Krishna, their knowledge and experience was seen by local Vaisnavas to be basic and limited, their mood of devotion inhibited by the “processual dynamics” that had made ISKCON into “the highly bureaucratic i­ nstitution that it is today” (Brooks 1989: 177) and by a narrow focus on asceticism to the neglect of the deeper mysteries of the tradition. Brooks, for his part, celebrates this process of cross-cultural awakening, arguing that the discovery and subsequent defection of many ISKCON devotees to non-ISKCON forms of the tradition “serves an integrative function in that ISKCON-created foreign Vaisnavas plunge deeper into the indigenous Indian culture, taking their own culture change one step further” (Brooks 1989: 197). Brooks’s study of ISKCON in India provides an important counterpoint to studies which frame ISKCON’s development within an entirely Western sociological context, or which define the boundaries of ISKCON’s distinctive “religious culture” against a broadly perceived Western cultural backdrop (cf. Rochford 2000).1 His optimistic evaluation of the “integration” of ISKCONcreated devotees into Vrindavana religious culture certainly does not reflect the official ISKCON position on the matter, however, where such cross-­ cultural contamination has been regarded as a direct threat to the institutional integrity and religious authority of ISKCON. When Prabhupada received news in 1976 that a group of his disciples based in Los Angeles had been exploring esoteric themes of the Vaisnava sacred texts relating to Krishna’s amorous pastimes with the gopis (the cowherd girls of Vrindavana), themes which Prabhupada had warned against in his own teachings (Goswami 1998: 322– 325), the heretical influence was quickly identified and denounced: “This contamination comes from the babajis in Vrindaban,” wrote Prabhupada in his angry response to the affair, in a letter circulated internationally throughout ISKCON by the GBC. “No devotee should wander around Vrindaban apart from our organized program” (cited in Brooks 1990: 272). Far from simply affirming the traditional Indian roots of ISKCON’s religious culture, then, the discovery by ISKCON devotees of Krishna devotionalism in its native context actually exposed a fundamental problem of genealogy for ISKCON: the problem of having multiple possible sources for the transmission of religious knowledge and authority, and the problem of the subsequent relativization of ISKCON’s absolute authority as the devotee’s exclusive route to Krishna. While Prabhupada was still alive, he may have been in a position to control or limit the effects of this problem. But following Prabhupada’s death in 1977, and after a subsequent series of crises of authority in ISKCON, the window that had been opened onto the Indian tradition during

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Prabhupada’s time would become, for many devotees, a door through which they could safely exit the burning house of ISKCON and follow a different path to Krishna Consciousness. ISKCON’s sordid history of succession after Prabhupada has been quite well-documented both within ISKCON and by observers of the movement (Deadwyler 2004; Goswami 1998: 283–346; Rochford 1985: 221–255, 1989, 1998; Shinn 1987: 50–60). Throughout its “post-charismatic” history (Bryant and Ekstrand 2004), ISKCON has been embroiled in a series of controversies featuring egomania, sex scandals, embezzlement, murder, and child abuse (Hubner and Gruson 1998; Rochford 2011; Wolf 2004). Over the course of three decades following Prabhupada’s departure, nearly every one of the eleven “spiritual masters” appointed by Prabhupada as successors—as gurus in their own right with the power to initiate (diksa) disciples into the parampara, or disciplic succession—has “fallen down” due to spiritual (often enough sexual, sometimes criminal) transgressions. Disciples of the “fallen” gurus found themselves cut off from the parampara, spiritually “orphaned” (Collins, cited in Rochford 2009) and unsheltered by the movement’s institutions. As the successor gurus had each been granted exclusive power to initiative new disciples within geographically defined regions under a “zonal acarya system,” the problem of “orphaned” disciples became especially acute in those affected regions (Rochford 1989, 2009). The existential stakes involved in these succession crises have been high indeed, both for the individual devotee striving to attain salvation, and for the future of ISKCON. The consequences of this history are most succinctly conveyed by the numerical estimate that, today, more than 4,000 of ­Prabhupada’s 5,000 disciples no longer remain active in ISKCON (Rochford 2009). Various desperate attempts have been made within ISKCON to find institutional and theological solutions to these crises, and to the particular problem of having so many disciples of Prabhupada’s successors being effectively disinherited from the spiritual lineage by the actions of their gurus. Contests over authority were waged between the successor gurus, with their unique claim on genealogical inheritance through the parampara, and each with their own form of charismatic authority, and the GBC, holding itself up as the institutionalized embodiment of Prabhupada’s will (Deadwyler 2004). In its crisis response, the GBC sought to diffuse the power of the successor gurus by dismantling the “zonal acarya system,” authorizing a significant multiplication of the number of initiating diksa gurus and reaffirming the ultimate authority of Prabhupada (now embodied in his textual corpus of teachings) as the instructing siksa guru for all ISKCON devotees (Rochford 2009). Proposing an alternative theological solution, a factional group calling itself the



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ISKCON Reform Movement refuted the very authority of the successor gurus to initiate their own disciples into the parampara, and started initiating new disciples, on behalf of Prabhupada himself, as direct disciples of Prabhupada (Rochford 2009). Another solution, coming from outside the institutional confines of ISKCON itself, was presented quite soon after Prabhupada’s death. Already known to senior ISKCON disciples since Prabhupada’s time, Prabhupada’s Gaudiya Math godbrothers in India have been only too ready and willing to offer spiritual refuge to disaffected and dislocated ISKCON devotees, and to reconnect them to the spiritual lineage by taking them on as their own disciples. According to Rochford (2009), ISKCON experienced its first major schism five years after Prabhupada’s death, when an influential ISKCON leader and one hundred of his disciples left ISKCON to follow Sridara Maharaja, one of Prabhupada’s Gaudiya Math godbrothers. Over the course of the 1990s, hundreds of devotees, many being disciples of “fallen” ISKCON gurus, left ISKCON to become followers of a senior Gaudiya Math figure, Srila Narayana Maharaja (Collins 2004; Goswami 1998: 326; Rochford 2009). Narayana Maharaja’s influence in particular has exposed a raw nerve in ISKCON, and it continues to pain the movement today.2 For those who have left ISKCON to follow Narayana Maharaja, ISKCON retrospectively emerges as a first stage in their spiritual development, a platform from which ­“ISKCON-created” neophytes (Brooks 1989: 197), having learned the basics of Krishna Conscious practice, can then step onto the path to the true esoteric mysteries of the Gaudiya tradition. From the point of view of the ISKCON faithful, by contrast, the very idea that Prabhupada’s teachings were somehow limited or incomplete, or that the religious institution he founded was not in and of itself the sole sacrosanct vehicle to salvation, is tantamount to heresy. Narayana Maharaja’s international preaching tours provoked consternation and official rebuke from ISKCON’s GBC and Temple Presidents, fearing the elderly saddhu was deliberately poaching ISKCON disciples and preaching esoteric doctrines and practices which contradicted Prabhupada’s own teachings (Collins 2004; Goswami 1998). Being unable to deny the “push” factors leading devotees out of ISKCON, however, and having to acknowledge the “pull” of traditional authority invested in a senior respected representative of the Gaudiya tradition, the burning theological and existential question for ISKCON has concerned how it can reclaim its genealogical inheritance while maintaining its exclusive claim on salvation. ISKCON’s doctrinal response has been formulated in various official position statements on Narayana Maharaja. These statements have not sought to deny or defend the evidence of the fallibility of ISKCON’s gurus. Nor have

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they sought to counter the claims of Narayana Maharaja’s followers to have found a “pure devotee” who can guide devotees in their personal spiritual development. Rather, these definitive mission statements assert a higher purpose to ISKCON in continuing Prabhupada’s still incomplete missionary work: the salvation of all humanity. They remind devotees of Prabhupada’s original sacrifice in leaving Vrindavana and venturing into the world in the service of Krishna, and they reinstate the institution of ISKCON itself as the vehicle for Srila Prabhupada’s ongoing global mission. For those who, despite everything, remain committed to this vision for ISKCON, the upshot of this experience has been the theological and institutional affirmation of ISKCON’s distinct sectarian identity over and against the claims of the Indian tradition. Re-envisaged as the transcultural incarnation of a once culturally stagnated tradition, ISKCON today asserts the sectarian claim of being the latest, highest, and most truly global form of the Caitanya movement.

Creative Tension Rochford (2009) has made the insightful observation that ISKCON’s history of defection, factionalism, and schism has not necessarily deprived the movement of its energy and vitality. Indeed, the sheer intensity of sectarian debate which has characterized ISKCON’s history after Prabhupada is a clear sign of this vitality. Much of this creative energy has been produced in the course of a series of tense cross-cultural encounters between ISKCON and alternative forms of the Gaudiya tradition in India. Certainly these sectarian encounters and debates force us to re-evaluate the question of ISKCON’s genealogical inheritance. On the one hand, simple affirmations of ISKCON’s traditional Indian origins can no longer be offered without wading into a heated sectarian battle between ISKCON and competing sources of traditional religious authority. On the other hand, the problem of genealogical transmission in ISKCON can longer be approached solely in terms of the organization’s capacity to reproduce itself beyond the first generation of converts through internal leadership succession and the development of institutional structures to support families, socialize children, and enculturate new recruits into a distinct religious culture (cf. Rochford 2007). If the first generation of ISKCON devotees defined their religious culture and institutional identity against a broadly conceived Western society, the corruption and disintegration of this religious culture has actually opened up the possibility of discovering what is, in reality, a heterogeneous complex of religious practices and theological resources comprising the broader Gaudiya



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Vaisnava tradition in India. Today, it is against this backdrop that ISKCON’s sectarian identity is most sharply defined. In many ways, ISKCON’s Gaudiya Vaisnava origins are still being discovered today. For many ISKCON-created devotees, this discovery has led them away from ISKCON and deeper into the complexities of this Indian religion (Brooks 1989). But it would be a mistake to suppose that this cross-cultural traffic has moved all in the one direction. After Prabhupada, other representatives of the Gaudiya tradition ventured out of their spiritual heartlands in India to preach in Western countries, and it is through the various networks of devotees and former devotees of ISKCON that they are building up their international following. In this important sense, just as ISKCON has come to discover G ­ audiya Vaisnavism, ISKCON has also opened up Gaudiya Vaisnavism to the world.

Notes 1. Further research on ISKCON in India, and in other non-Western contexts in which the movement has established a presence, is certainly warranted. See Sebastian and Parameswaran (2007) on Chinese Hare Krishnas in Singapore. 2. Narayana Maharaja’s death in 2010 will not have diminished his influence among followers.

Bibliography Baird, R. D. 1988. “ISKCON and the Struggle for Legitimation.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 70, no. 3: 157–169. Barker, E. 2004. “Perspective: What Are We Studying: A Sociological Case for Keeping the ‘Nova.’” Nova Religio 8, no. 1: 88–102. Brooks, C. R. 1989. The Hare Krishnas in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1990. “Hare Krishna, Radhe Shyam: The Cross-Cultural Dynamics of Mystical Emotions in Brindaban.” In Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India, edited by O. M. Lynch, 262–285. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Bryant, E. F., and M. L. Ekstrand, eds. 2004. The Hare Krishna Movement: The PostCharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant. New York: Colombia University Press. Collins, I. H. 2004. “The ‘Routinization of Charisma’ and the Charismatic: The Confrontation between ISKCON and Narayana Maharaja.” In The Hare Krishna Movement: The Post-Charismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant, edited by E. F. Bryant and M. L. Ekstrand, 149–169. New York: Colombia University Press. Cox, H. 1977. Turning East: The Promise and Peril of the New Orientalism. London: Allen Lane.

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Dalmia, V., and H. von Stirtencron, eds. 1995. Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Daner, F. J. 1976. The American Children of Krsna: A Study of the Hare Krsna Movement. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Deadwyler, W. H. 2004. “Cleaning House and Cleaning Hearts: Reform and Renewal in ISKCON.” In The Hare Krishna Movement: The Post-Charismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant, edited by E. F. Bryant and M. L. Ekstrand, 149–169. New York: Colombia University Press. Goswami, S. d. 1993. Srila Prabhupada-Lilamrta. Second Collectors Edition. New Delhi: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Goswami, T. K. 1998. “The Perils of Succession: Heresies of Authority and Continuity in the Hare Krishna Movement.” In A Hare Krishna at Southern Methodist University: Collected Essays 1995–1997, edited by T. K. Goswami, 283–346. Dallas: Pundits Press. Haddon, M. 2013. “Speaking of Krishna: Rhetoric and Revelation in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).” Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 4, no. 1: 49–70. Hopkins, T. J. 1983. “Interview with Thomas J. Hopkins.” In Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna: Five Distinguished Scholars on the Krishna Movement in the West, edited by S. J. Gelberg, 101–161 New York: Grove Press. ———. 1989. “The Social and Religious Background for Transmission of Gaudiya Vaisnavism to the West.” In Krishna Consciousness in the West, edited by D. G. Bromley and L. D. Shinn, 35–54. Lewisberg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Hubner, J., and L. Gruson. 1988. Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas. New York: Harcourt. Judah, J. S. 1974a. Hare Krishna and the Counterculture. New York: Wiley. ———. 1974b. “The Hare Krishna Movement.” In Religious Movements in Contemporary America, edited by I. I. Zaretsky and M. P. Leone, 463–478. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1993. “Foreword.” In Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta. Vol. 3, Only He Could Lead Them: San Francisco/India 1967, edited by S. d. Goswami, pp. v–vii. New Delhi: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. King, U. 1978. “Indian Spirituality, Western Materialism: An Image and its Function in the Reinterpretation of Modern Hinduism.” Social Action 28, no. 1: 62–86. Knott, K. 2000. “In Every Town and Village: Adaptive Strategies in the Communication of Krishna Consciousness in the UK, the First Thirty Years.” Social Compass 47, no. 2: 153–167. Lewis, J. R. 2003. Legitimating New Religions. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Melton, J. G. 1989. “The Attitude of Americans toward Hinduism from 1883 to 1983 with Special Reference to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.”



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In Krishna Consciousness in the West, edited by D. G. Bromley and L. D. Shinn, 79–101. Lewisberg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Melton, J. G. 1995. “The Changing Scene of New Religious Movements: Observations from a Generation of Research.” Social Compass 42, no. 2: 265–276. ———. 2004. “Perspective: Toward a Definition of ‘New Religion.’” Nova Religio 8, no. 1: 73–87. Michael, R. B. 1989. “Heaven, West Virginia: Legitimation Techniques of the New Vrindaban Community.” In Krishna Consciousness in the West, edited by D. G. Bromley and L. D. Shinn, 188–216. Lewisberg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Nye, M. 2001. Multiculturalism and Minority Religions in Britain: Krishna Consciousness, Religious Freedom, and the Politics of Location. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press. Povinelli, E. A. 2006. “Spiritual Freedom, Cultural Copyright.” In The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality, by id., 95–174. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rochford, E. B., Jr., 1982. “Recruitment Strategies, Ideology, and Organisation in the Hare Krishna Movement.” Social Problems 29, no. 4: 399–410. ———. 1985. Hare Krishna in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ———. 1989. “Factionalism, Group Defection and Schism in the Hare Krishna Movement.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28, no. 2: 162–179. ———. 1998. “Reactions of Hare Krishna Devotees to Scandals of Leaders’ Misconduct.” In Wolves within the Fold: Religious Leadership and Abuses of Power, edited by A. Shupe, 101–117. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ———. 2000. “Demons, Karmies, and Non-Devotees: Culture, Group Boundaries, and the Development of Hare Krishna in North America and Europe.” Social Compass 47, no. 2: 169–186. ———. 2007. Hare Krishna Transformed. New York: New York University Press. ———. 2009. “Succession, Religious Switching, and Schism in the Hare Krishna Movement.” In Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide, edited by J. R. Lewis and S. M. Lewis, 265–286. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2011. “Knocking on Heaven’s Door: Violence, Charisma and the Transformation of New Vrindaban.” In Violence and New Religions, edited by J. R. Lewis, 275–294. New York: Oxford University Press. Rosen, S. J. 1992. Passage from India: The Life and Times of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd. Said, E. W. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Sebastian, R., and A. Parameswaran. 2007. “Conversion and the Family: Chinese Hare Krishnas.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 22, no. 3: 341–359. Shinn, L. D. 1987. The Dark Lord: Cult Images and the Hare Krishnas in America. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.

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Stewart, T. K. 1992. “The Biographies of Sri Caitanya and the Literature of the Gaudiya Vaisnavas.” In Vaisnavism: Contemporary Scholars Discuss the Gaudiya Tradition, edited by S. J. Rosen, 101–125. New York: FOLK Books. Tuck, D. R. 1985. “Double Incarnation (Avatara) of Krsna-Caitanya in the Caitanyacaritamrta.” In Bengal Vaisnavism, Orientalism, Society and the Arts, edited by J. T. O’Connell, 29–35. East Lansing: Asian Studies Center Michigan State University. Wolf, D. 2004. “Child Abuse and the Hare Krishnas: History and Response.” In The Hare Krishna Movement: The Post-Charismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant, edited by E. F. Bryant and M. L. Ekstrand, 321–344. New York: Colombia University Press.

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Transcendental Meditation, the Art of Living Foundation, and Public Relations from psychedelic romanticism to science and schism Inga B. Tøllefsen

indian-oriented new religious movements (INRMs) have long histories in the West. As both culturally emblematic and countercultural, some of these movements have generated massive controversies,1 others have gone “under the radar” of mass media. This chapter will treat the cases of Transcendental Meditation (TM), with its long-standing presence in a Western (and especially the North American) context, and the Art of Living Foundation (AoL), a splinter group from TM and a rather recent addition to the INRM “family tree.” This chapter will examine some controversies in TM’s history in the United States, some perspectives on schisms from TM, and relations with the mass media/levels of public controversy.

Peace and Psychedelia TM began as the “Spiritual Regeneration Movement” in Madras, India, in 1957. Humes and Sawyer (2013: 18) call TM an intentional international movement which quickly grew. By 1959 the movement’s guru/leader/founder ­Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had already set up operations in Los Angeles. In the early days TM was a fairly closely knit group learning what at that time was called “Transcendental Deep Meditation,” a form of mantra meditation that would bring bliss and prosperity, not only to the meditators but to the entire

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world. From both his guru Brahmananda and the Advaita Vedanta tradition, Maharishi claimed that Recognizing that a society is but a collection of individuals, Maharishi, in line with the traditional Advaitin viewpoint, argued that whatever affects those individuals must influence their society. In other words, individual peace and happiness are the real core of world peace and happiness. “As a forest is only as green as the trees in the forest are green,” Maharishi often repeated, “so a society is only as peaceful as the individuals in the society are peaceful.” (Humes and Sawyer 2013: 30–31) The TM technique is described by the movement as a “simple, natural, effortless procedure” that is to be practiced twice a day for twenty minutes, a sittingdown meditation which turns one’s focus inward. Meditators will be taught to experience pure awareness, which in the TM movement is called transcendental consciousness.2 The movement’s key practice, its Vedanta roots,3 and a belief in concepts such as reincarnation (also shared with a larger spiritual subculture) show a remarkable stability in practice and philosophy during its history—even though the ways of defining these have gone through big changes in the fifty-plus years the movement has existed. Successfully capitalizing on the peace angle, TM increased its status in the public eye of the countercultural, neo-romantic 1960s and 1970s. According to Humes and Sawyer (2013) during these decades TM—only in the United States—trained ten thousand teachers, had more than two million followers, and established meditation centers in every major city. It eventually became a global phenomenon with adherents from all corners of the globe. However, creating the world’s largest intended international meditation movement did not come about without controversy. In their 2013 volume Watering the Roots, Cynthia Humes and Dana Sawyer trace TM history in the United States, mapping the controversies following the movement on its path to fame, its subsequent “fall” from public grace, and its eventual regaining of public esteem. The authors state that the surge of hippie romanticism in the 1960s came as a boon for Maharishi and TM. Most “mainstream” Americans did not show much enthusiasm for either the hippies or for TM, but many young, radical college students converted to the movement, for many reasons. The new subculture embraced Maharishi, an “imagined India” and the movement’s countercultural ideals and ideas. Humes and Sawyer use the words “Psychedelic Romanticism” for this culture, whose interests rely “on an assumed connection between chemicallyinduced states of consciousness and those described in Indian mysticism. . . .



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This connection between drug states and mysticism in the psychedelic culture is important . . . because it contributed to the first major wave of interest in Maharishi in America” (2013: 65). The early converts to TM are likely to have caused some controversy in mainstream United States. Far from interested in cutting their hair and getting a proper job, young people were fascinated with the prospect of expanding their consciousness and creating world peace under the tutelage of their new guru. And, to further the controversies even more, Humes and Sawyer highlight the fact that the psychedelic connection coupled TM with the paragons of the pop scene at the time, The Beatles. The vanguard of the hippie movement “believed Indian mysticism could not only explain acid experience but extend it. So now the actual Indian techniques of spiritual growth, and not just its terminology to explain a chemically-induced state, were being appropriated by the counterculture” (2013: 70–71).There is no doubt that the concoction of Indian-oriented techniques and philosophies, psychedelics, and the TM- Beatles connection was extremely beneficial for TM for a while, launching Maharishi into international stardom, where “The Beatles’ embrace of Maharishi and TM at that very moment not only formalized the counterculture’s theory that meditation was the next step toward mystical awakening, but singled Maharishi out from the gurus then in the spotlight” (Humes and Sawyer 2013: 75). Thus the illumined Maharishi, in tow with The Beatles, had captured the world’s interest, magnified through mass media. The relationship between NRMs and media has typically been marked by turbulence. NRMs have been viewed as extremely controversial, or have been pegged as such by the mass media. James Beckford (1994) observes that generally the media have related to NRMs in a negative, conflict-oriented way— which is reflected in TM’s ambivalent relations with the mass media. In the beginning of his career in the West, Maharishi was everywhere, boosted by his closeness to The Beatles. In late 1967 he was featured on the cover of the New York Times Sunday magazine, rated as “Chief Guru of the Western World”; in 1968 he appeared on national television, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and received a positive response even from mainstream America (Humes and Sawyer 2013). However, as the Maharishi became increasingly concerned with attracting mainstream meditators, he had a difficult balancing act to manage while simultaneously keeping the young psychedelia-oriented counterculturalists interested and engaged in the movement. This strategy of attempting to “have his cake and eat it too” eventually backfired for Maharishi. Not long after his advent on national TV the Beatles broke with the guru, claiming disappointment, personal tension, and Maharishi’s sexual (mis)conduct with female devotees as reasons. This kind of PR led the

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mass media to predict the imminent demise of TM and Maharishi. This was also fueled by his failed tour with The Beach Boys and his public image as he spoke of peace, bliss, and personal transformation in a time of war and social unrest. “Mainstream America perceived Maharishi as being as misguided as the hippies themselves, a sideshow under their big top” (Humes and Sawyer 2013: 91). Negativity toward NRMs seems to be especially visible in the American context (though one can cite examples from other countries). Beckford (1994) cites modern secularized society as a source of much of the skepticism toward religion. Because the level of tolerance toward the active practice of religion is relatively low, “unconventional” religions tend to be especially problematic.4 Historically NRMs have been, and still are, a marginal phenomenon, and so was TM in its early “hippie” days. Relatively few people who do not self-define as “seekers” have been involved in these organizations, read their literature, or attended meetings. The public knowledge of NRMs is therefore quite minimal, and because what the public knows about NRMs is what comes through the mass media, and opinions appear to be easily swayed. Beckford refers to his own data when he concludes that “even people directly affected by NRMs relied for their information overwhelmingly on the mass media. Very few people managed or tried to contact the movements directly” (1994: 2). These are mechanisms Maharishi seems to have been very aware of in his public relations strategies. He clearly felt the need to “polish” the movement and adapt it to the mainstream, moving away from previous hippie and drug culture connotations, thus paving the way for the “average Joe” meditator. Avoiding too much controversy and aligning himself and his movement to the ­zeitgeist of the time seems to have been his modus operandi from the early days of TM.

Science and Schism In the 1970s Maharishi and TM moved away from their neo-Hindu, “religiously” based self-presentation toward a particular interpretation of science5 as their main legitimizer. Teachers and meditators were told to “suit up” and look sharp, and The Science of Creative Intelligence “emerged from a ­systematic campaign beginning around 1970 to shift focus away from appealing to the spiritually inclined, a relative minority, toward the masses who, excited by the moon landing in 1968, were worshipping even more enthusiastically at the temple of science and rationalism” (Humes and Sawyer 2013: 107). This represents quite a clear break from TM in its earlier incarnation and seems to have created a fair lot of controversy internally. Some of the



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long-standing devotees were clearly disappointed in the turn away from overt spirituality, and TM received some bad press from disgruntled followers and the anti-cult movement. However, the strategy of attracting the mainstream by turning toward science was a success, and Maharishi, who only a few years before had been laughed at and ridiculed by mass media for his hippie ways, now became the UN “Man of Hope” as he pulled all kinds of scientists and academics to his side. The new “scientized” language in TM was, as Humes and Sawyer highlight, effective in the attempt to sever the associations with organized religion. Maharishi’s active, this-worldly approach to self-development seemed attractive to the intelligentsia, and neither the guru nor the organization was negative toward the numerous scientific studies on their meditation techniques. However, the move from neo-romantic sensibilities toward a more scientific jargon must have alienated some of his early followers, and likely even played a role in one of the public controversies over power and legitimacy in the TM movement. As Roy Wallis notes: “Accounts of a number of schisms seem to suggest the grounds or occasions for schism are rather diverse. A wide range of social divisions have been implicated: economic, national, rural-urban, status, cultural, etc. Likewise, many schisms are seen as having resulted from personality conflicts and/or ambitions for the attainment of power or position” (1979: 177). Ambition and personality conflicts seem inescapable in this context, as Maharishi not only excommunicated Sri Sri Ravi Shankar but also several other prominent and charismatic members of TM at more or less the same time. The late 1970s and early 1980s was a difficult time for the TM movement. According to Humes and Sawyer (2013), this was a time of court cases and bad publicity, and of an increasingly authoritarian line from TM leadership—driving away many of the long-timers who had come to the movement with the Romantic sensibilities of the hippie era. Even the formerly successful non-religious, “scientific” approach to stress relief stopped drawing large numbers from the mainstream, and the TM movement once again went into decline. As often happens to a movement in “crisis,” new charismatic leaders crop up; “rival gurus who sought to re-package their insights gleaned from their own involvement in the TMO [Transcendental Meditation Organization] into new and competing enlightenment products for the marketplace” (Humes and Sawyer 2013: 205). Perhaps the most controversial of these was Robin Carlsen of Victoria, BC. This former est-trained actor was dissatisfied with what he deemed the impersonal aspects of TM and with Maharishi not recognizing him as having attained “enlightenment.” Carlsen drew quite a few TM-ers to himself, and at the time of his lawsuit against Maharishi International University

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(MIU) he had, says Humes and Sawyer, a close following of some seventy-five people and some two hundred “hangers-on.” Carlsen’s main criticisms of TM were against their authoritarian structure and dry scientism. His own charismatic personality and confrontational style may have been a better fit for some in the movement. Imagining himself as the next big guru and claiming that his teachings were compatible with those of TM, the early 1980s were marked by Carlsen stirring things up at the movement’s headquarters in Fairfield, Iowa. Eventually the conflict escalated into a lawsuit, where Carlsen sued TM and Maharishi on the grounds of “anti-trust, anti-competitive practices” (Humes and Sawyer 2013: 212). However, a monetary settlement seems not to have been the most important issue; rather Carlsen wanted recognition and positive feedback from Maharishi. This was not to happen—Maharishi washed his hands of Carlsen, who by law was now required to inform participants in his World Teacher Seminar Teacher Training Programs that his program and that of TM were incompatible. At the same time, in India a rather different schismatic story evolved. One of Maharishi’s right hand men in the subcontinent, Ravi Shankar, “broke off” from TM to start his own spiritual venture more closely aligned to traditional Hinduism—the Art of Living Foundation (AoL). AoL is currently one of the world’s largest NRMs. AoL is present in 152 countries, and the organization spreads its founder’s message of a “violence-free, stress-free society” through the mediums of meditation, yoga, and breathing techniques, as well as numerous initiatives in education, development, and peace work. Sudharshan Kriya (AoL’s core practice, often abbreviated SKY) is regarded as a scientific technique within the movement, along the same lines as how TM represented its techniques and philosophy from the 1970s onward (Tøllefsen 2012). Thus, on an organizational level, TM can be referred to as AoL’s parent organization. One can also describe the relationship between them in terms of a metaphor of family resemblance.6 In his “biography” of the AoL founder, Francois Gautier (2008) describes Ravi Shankar’s stint in TM in short but flowery terms. After being introduced to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his TM movement at a meeting in Bangalore, Shankar followed the Maharishi to his ashram in Rishikesh. He spent time there and gradually gained the trust of the founder, whereupon he was given more responsibility within the organization. “Although Sri Sri was very young, Maharishi recognized his abilities and put him to work. He was thus sent to various places to give talks on the Vedas and science” (Gautier 2008: 36). Ravi Shankar was also sent to various countries in Europe to continue his teaching and to set up centers for learning, and furthered his talent for organization through many events within TM. Gautier says that even though very little is



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known about the time Ravi Shankar spent in the TM organization, he believes this to have been a formative period for Shankar as a young man. In the early 1980s Ravi Shankar, only in his mid-twenties, ran Ved Vignan Maha Vidya Peeth, TM’s Vedic school for boys in Bangalore. Gautier (2008) writes that TM wanted to move the school and all its pupils to Delhi. This was a plan which backfired for TM, as Ravi Shankar refused to follow orders and chose to run the school of his own accord with help from the local community. Then in 1982, after “receiving” Sudarshan Kriya (the breathing technique which now is the cornerstone practice of AoL) during a ten-day period of silent meditation, Shankar started giving his initial Art of Living courses. Shankar had been a prominent disciple of the Maharishi and a teacher in the TM organization for many years before he started his own ashram in Bangalore. According to Humes, “the marked resemblance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s marketing plan to that of Maharishi is obvious; clearly under his teacher’s tutelage, Shankar developed the managerial skills necessary to set up and run his own religious firm” (2009: 295–296).7 It is also more than a little likely that Ravi Shankar based the name of his movement on one of Maharishi’s best-known publications; The Science of Being and the Art of Living (1963). The schism from TM seems, as Gautier briefly describes it, to have happened in a fairly amicable and gradual way. “Perhaps most important of all, however, is the fact that until 1993, no overt action was taken by the TM Movement hierarchy in the United States against any of those who attended Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s programs; none was accused of going OTP [Off The Program]” (Humes and Sawyer 2013: 215). According to Humes (2009), this form of relatively conflict-less schism is classic in Hindu guru movements, where one guru surfaces from being a disciple of another guru to create his or her own organization. Thus, one can argue whether the split between TM and Ravi Shankar should be interpreted as a schism at all, as Ravi Shankar continued to work within the TM movement while setting up his own ashram in Bangalore and conducting his own courses on the newfound breathing technique. Lewis and Lewis (2009) state that schisms usually emerge out of conflict and that the term schism refers to a group that breaks away from a larger organization to create its own. Thus, in a strict definitional sense, it might be problematic to interpret Shankar’s entrepreneurship as a religious schism due, in part, to his status as an individual who exited TM and, in part, to the lack of overt conflict between him and TM. Humes (2009) mentions that Ravi Shankar recommended that TM practitioners in the United States continue their involvement with the Maharishi’s organization. However, they were encouraged to integrate the Sudarshan Kriya techniques as complimentary to their TM meditations. There is even evidence that Maharishi supported Shankar’s

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teachings: “TM practitioners were initially allowed to take his [Ravi Shankar’s] techniques and attend his courses” (Humes 2009: 296). So for over a decade, from the time Ravi Shankar founded the Art of Living in 1982, the two organizations seem to have coexisted and catered to a similar audience. As outlined by Lewis and Lewis, schisms tend to develop in complex and dynamic ways. In the introduction to their 2009 anthology on schisms, they list a number of factors that available scholarship has identified as potential “schism factors” within religious movements.8 For the TM/AoL split, as in both the Carlsen and the Chopra cases, the factor of personal ambition/ personality conflict appears to have been especially important. Schisms are often instigated by individuals with leadership ambitions and skills, and ambition was likely one of Shankar’s motivations for branching off on his own. As it turns out Sri Sri was markedly more successful than Carlsen, who vanished quite quickly from the guru limelight (Humes 2009). Following Finke and Scheitle (2009), one predisposing factor that enters into schismatic processes is the structure of a religious organization, especially its internal processes of resource distribution. The authors focus mainly on resource exchange between the denomination (the larger religious organization) and the constituent congregations that make up the organizational ecology: The reality is that instead of being a single organic being, a religious group or denomination is a heterogeneous collective of different organizations and individuals all connected by various networks of social ties. Congregations, denominational agencies, seminaries, ministers, members, and central authorities are some of the most common . . . some of these resources may be tangible, such as money, land for buildings, and worship materials. Other resources, such as legitimacy and authority, are less visible but just as important. These ties vary in the balance of their exchanges. (Finke and Scheitle 2009: 19) One might think that these explicitly Christian concepts (e.g., denominations and congregations) would not apply to Indian-oriented movements, but in the case of TM/AoL they fit quite well. Applying the denomination-congregation distinction both between TM and AoL as well as within AoL it is clear that AoL began as a congregation under the TM “umbrella” and could be regarded as such until Shankar was finally excommunicated in 1993. One can also view the AoL organization in India (the Bangalore ashram) as the “mother ship” and the small(er) chapters around the world as its congregations. This line of interpretation provides some interesting perspectives on the potential for



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schisms and controversies. Finke and Scheitle point out that the balance of power is a key: “when one party’s dependence does not equal the other’s, then there is a power imbalance where the latter holds power over the former” (2009: 19).9 It seems that the power distribution between TM and AoL was imbalanced for many years. Maharishi was still Shankar’s guru, and many of the practices within AoL are extremely similar to TM’s. The less visible factors of legitimacy and authority were still held by TM, where the “Maharishi brand” would have made good for the training, qualifications, and perceived expertise with consumers/practitioners. However, as Shankar’s individual legitimacy and authority grew,10 the power balance between the two organizations invariably shifted. Currently, the same kind of balance of power can be seen between the central authorities and the many “congregations” within AoL. AoL is what Finke and Scheitle call a “highly centralized, bureaucratic, or rational-legal denomination . . . where the central office provides resources and legitimacy to seminaries” (2009: 19). Without the central organization, the relatively smaller local branches would have little in the way of professional credentials and capital. The central organization also provides many direct benefits, worship materials, brand name, and religious history (Finke and Scheitle 2009). The local chapters do provide some resource feedback to the central organization, but the power balance is clearly in favor of what Finke and Scheitle refer to as the denominational office. The authors are clear that this form of organizational structure is less conducive to schism than other forms.11 A centralized organization has actors who are individually less powerful, and thus have more invested in solving problems formally, through the organizational system. This explains, in part, why the schism between TM and AoL was so low-key and drawn-out. It also explains why AoL seems to be a (relatively) conflict-less organization, where potential problems are most likely solved before they get a chance to get out of hand. The process of schism between the two guru movements peaked in the early 1990s, as TM began to adopt a hostile attitude toward Shankar’s organization. The status quo of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” where “no overt action was taken by the TM movement hierarchy in the United States against Shankar’s programs [lasted] until 1993” (Humes 2009: 296). At this point the devotees that practiced Sudarshan Kriya along with TM began facing an increasing number of sanctions (somewhat similar to what Carlsen had experienced in the early 1980s when he went OTP), though it was not until AoL workshops started to outrank TM in popularity in the United States that “brand loyalty to Maharishi was insisted upon” (2009: 302). Thus, the risk of TM adherents leaving the movement laying out their money on the less costly programs of

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Ravi Shankar and Deepak Chopra12 became an obvious threat to the TM organization. Humes points out that the subsequent breaks with Art of Living and Chopra can be interpreted as part of a larger design within the TM movement, likely based on competition for customers and the need for “product differentiation” (2009: 386). In Chopra’s case, his ejection from TM came as a bit of a bombshell. Maharishi recognized that Chopra was competent and charismatic enough to be a real threat, and instead of risking open competition within TM he rather chose to completely disassociate from Chopra. This schism took the form of a forced excommunication. It seems, however, that the break between Maharishi and Ravi Shankar was less unexpected and less dramatic: The strong emphasis on guru veneration in the Hindu tradition has ensured that Shankar never openly criticizes or speaks out against his master Maharishi. But the affection seems to have been mutual: only when the Art of Living workshops threatened to become more popular than standard TM fare did Maharishi take action against Sri Sri in North America. (2009: 392) Drawing on resource dependence theory, Finke and Scheitle (2009) discuss the closely related concept of inimitability as a potential deterrent to schisms. They say that to the “extent that a denomination holds claim to an exclusive truth, prophet, historical tradition, or ecclesiastical office, the chance of schism will also be reduced. In the parlance of organizational theory, the organization holds a competitive advantage because it provides an inimitable good or service” (Finke and Scheitle 2009: 23). Likewise, Wallis notes: “The propensity to schism increases directly with the availability of means of legitimating authority. The more bases of legitimation there are, or the more widely available they are, the greater the likelihood of schism” (1979: 186). If a breakaway group wants to leave they will thus lose the exclusive assets that a centralized organization can offer, and with that most likely experience the above-mentioned loss of legitimacy. This may be the reason Ravi Shankar spent ten years building his organization under the wings of TM, until it had grown strong enough to stand on its own. Much of an organization’s legitimacy (especially in guru-centric movements such as TM and AoL) stems from the founder/guru himself, where, as the “prophet,” he holds the predominance of definitional power. The guru (and his adherents) may believe that his is the only truth and thus create a sense of imitability— which can be a strong deterrent for defection. Or he can—as in the interplay between Ravi Shankar and the Maharishi (regarding initial “double membership” and consonance of TM and AoL practices)—proclaim the compatibility of



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his “inventions” with other practices and movements. Likewise, in the present (and in the future) Ravi Shankar’s “access to the divine” and his ownership of the Sudarshan Kriya technique may contribute to creating a sense of inimitability for the AoL organization. However, impressionistically, AoL currently does not seem to be striving for inimitability, an observation leading us back to Humes (2009), where she notes another important fact regarding TM: the largest “schisms” within the movement are the most dispersed—and perhaps the most discreet. A majority of the people who were involved with TM in its early days did not linger in the movement. Rather, they seemed to move on to other involvements, in what has been called a “conversion career.”13 Referring to Burke Rochford (1989),14 she notes a similar pattern in TM as he found in ISKCON, where “many voluntary defectors . . . joined other religious organizations but retained their primary religious framework, thus evidencing a strategy to avoid reconverting to the conventional secular worldview” (Humes 2009: 304). It seems, based on a small AoL survey from 2011 to 2012, that many TM “defectors” have ended up in AoL.15 Respondents from TM backgrounds did not say much about their reasons for joining AoL, but the high degree of similarity between the two organizations undoubtedly smoothed the transition. Some ten to twelve of the respondents who elaborated on their prior spiritual activities/ involvements mentioned TM. A few others were involved with the Osho (Bhagwan Rajneesh) movement. For these respondents, TM and Osho seem to have been one of many spiritual involvements, rather than an exclusive commitment. Thus, in the AoL context, it seems that schisms resulting from tension within the movement are unlikely to happen on a large scale. Rather, people may move on individually as part of their spiritual path or explore several paths without entirely severing their ties with the AoL organization. In the future it will be interesting to observe the AoL movement in terms of its potential for schism and controversy. For one thing, the inimitability of the group could be sorely tested upon the death of the founder—which, according to the NRM literature, is when an organization is most threatened by conflict and schism. However, as the three TM schisms investigated16 by Humes (2009) occurred while the Maharishi was still alive, it remains to be seen if the same pattern of schism will be repeated in Ravi Shankar’s organization. Based on Finke and Scheitle’s analysis (2009), I would predict that the current state of affairs within AoL, for example, regarding the organizational structure, will be an additional factor making schism less likely to occur. There are some religious markets and organizational dynamics that promote schism formation. The country where an organization originates and the

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cultural and religious diversity within that country are important. It is crucial to “understand the barriers potential new groups face. Will they lose subsidies and do they face penalties from the state or larger culture once they are formed? But even when sects can compete on equal footing with the dominant religions, the calls for schism will vary” (Finke and Scheitle 2009: 14). In the case of the TM/AoL schism the tension was low, and there did not seem to be severe sanctions for AoL once it had formed (until some years later). It does not seem that AoL faced any penalties at all in the beginning. Rather, just the opposite seems to have been the case: AoL quickly garnered support (probably both morally and financially) from the state, politicians, and influential members of society. Thus, an organization such as AoL can experience almost limitless growth (as it seems to be doing in its country of origin India) due to wide niche definitions, as well as the fact that the number of potential adherents within the niches are growing. I also anticipate one or more NRMs with new religious entrepreneurs emerging from AoL in India at some point. In the contemporary Indian context, the religious life is so diverse that the genesis of yet another new religious group would be no big deal—especially if, like AoL, the NRM follows the traditional guru-devotee-entrepreneur pattern that is so common with these movements. In a Western/Scandinavian context, on the other hand, there is a limit to how many potential adherents could become involved. This is especially so in the case of exotic, foreign movements such as Indian-oriented ones. It might appear that the “cultic milieu” in this part of the world is larger than it is, because aspects of the New Age are highly visible in the media. But looks can be deceiving. That a comparatively small and marginal phenomenon like AoL in the West might experience enough growth and diversification to lead to a schism seems unlikely.

Modern Media-tion However, though the extent of diversification and growth and factors like organizational structure may not be enough to warrant schisms in AoL in the same way as took place in TM, the movement is certainly well-known enough to have a relationship to mass media. James A. Beckford (1994) analyzes the forces that make mass media inclined to portray NRMs as controversial and to emphasize the potential for conflict.17 Beckford’s points tally with what I perceive as TM’s and AoL’s relationship with media. This is not the place for an in-depth analysis of the movements’ media relationships, but I believe there is a different pattern than suggested by Beckford in the public portrayal of AoL.



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Beckford emphasizes that NRMs are generally worth mentioning in the media only when a conflict is involved, as “(a) the main occasion for the portrayal and (b) as the principal means of structuring the account. Even those accounts which aspire towards a balanced, i.e. two-sided, presentation of the issues tend nevertheless to allow the conflictual aspects to predominate” (1994: 4). Beckford mentions the incident in Waco, Texas, as the “crowning example” of this.18 However, in the case of AoL, media coverage seems to be the opposite. First of all, when searching Google for AoL and media19 the results are fairly scant, both in Norway and abroad. There might, of course, be a discrepancy between what is accessible in printed media and in online news. But still, Art of Living is not exactly frequently mentioned. The most comprehensive source for AoL PR is actually the AoL webpages20 themselves, and in their press report pages one can find archives of AoL media relations going back a few years. These press reports are naturally positive, sporting headlines like “Global Humanitarian and Spiritual Leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Embarks on a Peace Mission to Pakistan”21 and “Karnataka Lawyers Boycott Courts; Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Offers to Mediate.”22 The case of TM and media is naturally a little different. As explained earlier in this chapter TM’s public relations have been mixed—to say the least. Media coverage has oscillated between full-on adulation (fueled by Beatle-mania) and ridicule as a relic of the “dead” hippie movement, until TM finally settled into what they are known for now; a science- and health-­ oriented movement where the spiritual aspects seem to have been downplayed, thus catering to the relatively secularized audience of the West. ­Similar to AoL, the most comprehensive source of information about TM is the movement’s own numerous websites. However, there are blogs and websites23 which, while not entirely negative, attempt “skeptical views” of TM and other Indian-oriented NRMs (such as AoL). Generally, it seems, current press regarding TM is fairly positive. The focus tends toward the positive, often referencing medical studies on health-related aspects of TM meditation practice: “American Heart Association: Transcendental Meditation May Lower Your Blood Pressure.”24 An interesting difference between TM’s presence and AoL’s presence on the World Wide Web is the celebrity connection. Maharishi had no qualms about sharing and capitalizing on the fame of others, and even today the TM movement frequently makes use of well-known individuals to spread their message. The front page of the TM website25 sports the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and other pages still maintain the Beatles connection with a photo of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in concert. The controversial film director David Lynch is also a long-time supporter of TM, even to the point of his starting his

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own foundation for “consciousness-based education and world peace.”26 In the AoL case there seems to be no such strong connection to the celebrity world—at least not in the Hollywood-centric fashion. Ravi Shankar rather seems to prefer the role of mediator, for example, in Sri Lanka, Kosovo, and Iraq,27 or meeting with other spiritual luminaries such as the Dalai Lama (who also wrote the foreword to Gautier’s 2002 biography/hagiography named The Guru of Joy). So although there is some truth to Beckford’s emphasis on the importance of the theme of conflict, with respect to AoL the conflict does not revolve around the organization in conflict with the wider society. Instead, the press coverage seems to revolve around AoL and Ravi Shankar entering areas of conflict in society in an attempt to spread a message of peace and to facilitate an environment for communication. Thus conflict can be interpreted as a leitmotiv even in the AoL media coverage, but with a different root cause and meaning than Beckford intended.

Concluding Remarks TM has experienced periods of controversy, both inside and outside the movement. Starting off as the spiritual guide of the 1960s counterculture, TM had a rocky start from the perspective of the social mainstream. Closely associated with the Beatles and with psychedelic drugs, the group was for a while viewed with skepticism. However, the connection to international stars quickly launched Maharishi into fame. After the Beatles publically left the movement, TM took a blow, and for a while the guru was a falling star—and the movement’s numbers with him. A guru in an international meditation movement such as TM can well be likened to a business entrepreneur, and Maharishi soon found a new rhetoric for his movement—that of modern science. Science is also a key term for the most successful splinter group from TM, AoL. In many ways similar to TM, especially in its practices, in a decade after its founding AoL and its leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar started competing with TM in the religious marketplace. Competition with “new” gurus emerging from TM led to a series of excommunications; first Robin Carlsen, then the more famous spiritual leaders Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Deepak Chopra. Currently it seems like AoL and TM have good relations with the mass media. The Internet makes communication and self-presentation easy for NRMs, and gives them a degree of control over PR unheard of in the late 1950s when TM first came to the United States. Mass media still often view NRMs from a conflictual perspective, but in the case of AoL the conflicts often seem to be ones in which the guru attempts mediation strategies between



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disagreeing parties, rather than a conflict between the movement and mainstream society as was the case for TM in its earlier days.

Notes 1. For an extremely controversial example one can refer to the Rajneesh (Osho) movement, see, e.g., Goldman 1999 and Carter 1990. 2. http://www.tm.org/meditation-techniques. 3. “[The] technique is based on the ancient Vedic tradition of enlightenment in India. This knowledge has been handed down by Vedic masters from generation to generation for thousands of years. About 50 years ago, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—the representative in our age of the Vedic tradition—introduced Transcendental Meditation to the world, restoring the knowledge and experience of higher states of consciousness at this critical time for humanity. When we teach the Transcendental Meditation technique today, we maintain the same procedures used by teachers thousands of years ago for maximum effectiveness,” at http://www.tm.org/meditation-techniques. 4. Furthermore, when some of these NRMs face hostility from society at large, they tend to react with equal hostility, leading to a spiral of antagonism that eventually leads to outright violence. Not all publicity is good publicity, and it seems that the only NRMs that are given space in the media are the “bad” ones associated with violence and murder/suicides; see, e.g., the tragic happenings at Jonestown, the Branch Dravidians at Waco, the Solar Temple, and Heaven’s Gate (Dawson 1998; see also Lewis 2011). 5. In this context science basically means systematized knowledge; TM, according to Humes and Sawyer (2013), kept their original Advaitin teachings but aligned them to Western science. 6. Originally coined in regard to NRMs by Eileen Barker, who referenced Wittgenstein’s philosophy as her source for this expression. The basic notion can also successfully be used as the basis for a system of classification—in works such as J. Gordon Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions (Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 3rd edition, 1989) and Christopher H. Partridge’s Encyclopedia of New Religions (Oxford, UK: Lion Hudson, 2004) 7. In this quote Humes refers to Bainbridge and Stark (1985). 8. These are membership subgroupings, personal ambition/personality conflicts, doctrinal/liturgical/behavioral norm disagreements, the death of a charismatic founder, and availability of alternative means of legitimation. 9. The authors refer to Emerson (1962) here; “Power-dependence Relations” in American Sociological Review 27: 31–41. 10. And when he learnt to utilize other forms of legitimation strategies (that may or may not be similar to those of TM). 11. For example, a decentralized or “charismatic” denomination (Finke and Scheitle 2009: 20).

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12. Another ex-TM devotee and “rival Indian leader” to become a religious entrepreneur in his own right (Humes 2009). 13. The term “conversion careers” was originally coined by James T. Richardson in his 1979 book Conversion Careers, In and Out of New Religions, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. 14. On a case study of the ISKCON movement. 15. This is also a point Humes and Sawyer make in their 2013 volume on TM, Watering the Roots. 16. “Robin Carlsen’s World Teach Movement; Ravi Shankar’s quasi-independent following, which remained nominally within the TM fold; and Deepak Chopra, who was ejected from TM as a potential threat to the Maharishi’s authority” (Humes 2009: 7). 17. These are conflict and news-worthiness, conflict as the Leitmotiv, cross-references to conflict, conflict feeding on stories of conflict, conflicts, journalists and control, as well as the idea that one conflict can hide another (Beckford 1994). 18. See also Lewis 2011. 19. Accessed in both English and Norwegian. 20. See, e.g., http://www.artofliving.org/latest-news and http://www.artofliving.org/ no-no/press-archives. 21. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/ 2012/03/12/prweb9273590. DTL#ixzz1pBwOlye7. 22. http://www.ndtv.com/article/karnataka/karnataka-lawyers-boycott-courts-­ spiritual-guru-sri-sri-offers-to-mediate-18287. 23. See, e.g., http://tmfree.blogspot.no/, posting numerous articles and discussion topic on TM-related issues. This blog also provides links to other TM skeptic/ critic sites, Wikipedia articles, links to other movements’ OTP sites, and to cult recovery and research sites. 24. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanne-ball/meditation-blood-pressure_ b_3294836.html. 25. http://www.tm.org/. 26. http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/. 27. See http://srisriravishankar.org/social-initiatives?quicktabs_1=2.

References Bainbridge, William Sims, and Rodney Stark. 1985. “Cult Formation: Three Compatible Models.” In The Future of Religion, University of California Press, edited by Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, 171-188. Originally published in Sociological Analysis 40, no. 4 (1979): 283–295. Beckford, James A. 1994. “The Mass Media and New Religious Movements.” In ISKCON Communications Journal (online) 2, no. 2 (December). Originally delivered at the International Conference on Religion and Conflict Armagh, May 20–21, 1994.



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Carter, Lewis F. 1990. Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram: The Role of Shared Values in the Creation of a Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dawson, Lorne L. 1998. Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. Ontario, CA: Oxford University Press. Emerson, Richard M. 1962. “Power-Dependence Relations.” American Sociological Review, Vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 31–41. Finke, Roger, and Christopher P. Scheitle. 2009. “Understanding Schisms: Theoretical Explanations for their Origins.” In Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide, edited by James R. Lewis and Sarah M. Lewis, 11–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gautier, François. 2008. The Guru of Joy: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Art of Living. New Delhi, India: Hay House. First published in 2002 by Books Today. Goldman, Marion. 1999. Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Humes, Cynthia Ann. 2009. “Schisms within Hindu Guru Groups: The Transcendental Meditation Movement in North America.” In Sacred Schisms, edited by J. Lewis, 372–396. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Humes, Cynthia, and Dana Sawyer. 2013. Watering the Roots, forthcoming. Lewis, James R., and Sarah M. Lewis. 2009. “Introduction.” In Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide, edited by id., 1–8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, James R. 2011. “The Branch Dravidians: Through the Lens of Jonestown.” Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 2, no. 1 (Spring): 55–88. Wallis, Roy. 1979. Salvation and Protest: Studies of Social and Religious Movements. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Rochford, Burke. 1989. “Factionalism, Group Defection, and Schism in the Hare Krishna Movement.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28, no. 2: 162–179. Tøllefsen, Inga (2012). “Notes On The Demographic Profiles Of Art Of Living Practitioners In Norway And Abroad.” Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, 3(2): 216–243.

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Controversy, Cultural Influence, and the Osho/Rajneesh Movement Marion S. Goldman

over the past century, very few alternative religions have successfully survived their founders’ deaths, changed public perceptions, and added to their global influence. The largest of these, the Church of the Latter-day Saints, adapted to tensions with its host societies, moved toward the social and religious mainstream, and became an influential institutionalized religion throughout the world (Stark 1996). However, few other small, marginalized movements have survived and succeeded as visible cultural influences that introduce spiritual innovations in global contexts. Unlike the Mormons, the Rajneesh/Osho movement’s formal membership declined since it reached its peak in the late 1970s. Nevertheless, the Osho movement has become a pervasive cultural force in the United States and throughout the world. The Osho movement, as it is now known, has been nimble in transforming its identity through selective reinterpretations of movement history, reframing doctrines, and redefining its goals. In the wake of their 1985 departure from the movement’s short-lived ­communal city, Rajneeshpuram in central Oregon, some disenchanted first-­ generation members denounced the group and initiated lawsuits to reclaim the money and time they had given the group (McCormack 1985). After the founder’s death in 1990, several schismatic groups challenged the Osho movement’s organizational leadership and their reinterpretations of earlier doctrines. However, neither early controversies nor internal tensions have diminished the Osho movement’s worldwide visibility. While Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has visited the Osho Meditation Resort, nothing illustrates the movement’s contemporary cultural influence more than edgy pop idol Lady Gaga’s 2011 endorsement:



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Oh yes Osho I read a lot of Osho books and I have been reading a lot about [Osho’s views on] rebellion, which is my favorite so far. And how creativity is the greatest form of rebellion in life. It’s important to stand up for what you believe in and to fight for equality. Equality is one of the most important things in my life—social, political, economic e­ quality—these are all things I fight for in my country as a citizen. So I read Osho because not only do I love his work and what he writes about, but I guess I am kind of an Indian hippie! (Bhushan 2011) Lady Gaga’s infatuation typifies the ways that twenty-first-century spiritual seekers relate to Osho through books, videos, and web applications, and visits to the Meditation Resort in Pune. Somewhat surprisingly, neither Zuckerberg’s visit nor Gaga’s comments were met with criticisms by the news media. The Osho organization in Pune has mainstreamed Osho and his message so successfully that he is now widely viewed as a compelling spiritual teacher rather than a dangerous charismatic leader. The movement began as a small enclave of spiritual seekers working with a beloved teacher and became a highly controversial worldwide movement. After a debacle in the United States, new leaders framed it as a movement that offered everyone a meditative approach to personal growth and worldly fulfillment. The Osho Rajneesh Movement moved from an initial period of inclusivity to tightly bounded exclusivity in the mid-1970s and 1980s and then back to inclusivity. Prior to 1974, Rajneesh encouraged devotees in his relatively small movement to explore many approaches to religion and combine his practices with others. As the movement grew and moved to the Shree Rajneesh Ashram in Pune, Rajneesh assumed the role of enlightened spiritual master; sannyasins (devotees) were increasingly required to renounce other spiritual paths. During its most controversial decade, from 1976 through 1986, the movement required exclusive dedication to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Contemporary narratives downplay the dramatic controversies that defined the group to outsiders during its first three decades and focus on the meditations and approaches to personal growth that Rajneesh introduced to his early devotees. The Osho movement now attracts spiritual seekers in their twenties, thirties, and forties. Gaga and Zuckerberg represent the summit of the global spread of spiritual privilege that allows affluent seekers to sample an array of doctrines and practices. Spiritual privilege involves social, cultural, and economic capital that enable individuals to devote time and resources to

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select, combine, and revise their religious beliefs and practices over a lifetime (Goldman 2012: 3). The vital global spiritual marketplace that is visible on the Web invites individual seekers to sample a variety of available spiritualities and philosophies and helps stimulate interest in Osho. Contemporary seekers who visit the Osho Meditation Resort are clients of one or more new religions, and they select the comrades, practices, and doctrines that enable them to pursue richer spiritual experiences and develop their full human potentials. In the twenty-first century, both the supply of spiritual possibilities and also the demand for them continue to expand exponentially. Osho Meditation Resort is one of thousands of centers affiliated with the loose global consortium of retreats and self-enhancement programs known as Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) that together generate over three billion US dollars each year (Newman 2008).

Conflicts, Copyrights, and Global Influence While the Rajneesh movement was once a lightning rod in its host societies, most of its tensions are now internal. The most consequential recent battles involve a decade of litigation about copyrights and use of the name “Osho.” In 2009, the US Trademark and Appeal Board ruled that the name “Osho” was generic and could be applied to any groups, goods, or services that related to Osho meditations. However, copyrights to thousands of compilations of Osho’s discourses and other specific guides to meditation still belong to the Zurichbased Osho International Foundation, which is affiliated with the Osho Meditation Resort in Pune (Duchane 2011). The leadership in Pune lost the long-­ running lawsuit. But since the name Osho has been ruled generic, it has the same legitimacy as the names of Jesus or Moses and the ruling can allow the growth of small centers that enable more spiritual seekers to discover the movement and draw them to its publications and the Osho Meditation Resort. Leaders of the primary movement have reached out through media and through decentralized networks of traveling meditation leaders and hundreds of small local centers that are tied to the headquarters, the Meditation Resort, in Pune. The Osho Meditation Resort receives substantial revenues from visitors and its copyrights allow the movement to collect millions of dollars through sales of recordings, compilations of Osho’s discourses, and recently developed Osho computer applications. The lasting symbolic connection to Osho and his emblematic presence on the site of his first ashram provide legitimation for the Pune-based leadership. The Meditation Resort is where the master established his first community, gathered his devotees together in his last years, and died. The urn containing Osho’s ashes lies beneath the floor in Lao Tzu House at the Resort and the inscription on the marble floor above it reads



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“OSHO. Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited this Planet Earth between 11 Dec 1931–19 Jan 1990.” Osho’s doctrines and practices are now embedded in the broad Human Potential Movement, an amorphous cultural movement framed by assumptions that everyone can cultivate his/her full abilities in mind, body, spirit, and psyche to live her/his own best possible life (Wood 2008). The Human Potential Movement is open to Osho’s doctrines and practices because it implicitly supports bricolage, the construction of personal mosaics of spiritual beliefs and practices that remain separate and distinct from one another (Lévi-Strauss 1962). Bricolage is always unfinished, so spiritual seekers can combine Osho’s meditations and philosophies with many other spiritual paths throughout their lifetimes. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, devotees were required to take sannyas and affirm their commitment to Rajneesh and his teachings, receive a sannyasin name that could be entirely new or simply an addition of a prefix “Ma” or “Swami” to their given names, meditate once daily, clothe themselves in sunrise colors of a whole spectrum of reds and oranges, become vegetarian, and wear a mala of 108 beads with a locket of Bhagwan’s picture (Goldman 1999: 31). Most important, sannyasins had to acknowledge Rajneesh as their personal spiritual master whose philosophies guided every aspect of their days. While contemporary seekers are welcome to participate in sannyas ceremonies at the Meditation Resort or an affiliated center and receive a new name, it is not a requirement for becoming a sannyasin. Devotees only need to affirm their commitment to practice Osho meditations regularly, although some go farther. While not changing her name, Lady Gaga has tweeted her twelve million followers about the fact that she might get an Osho tattoo, and other, less well-known devotees have actually inked Osho’s face or signature on their bodies. However, this practice is rather uncommon. Even members of the governing circle in Pune no longer wear sunrise colors or a locket with Osho’s image. At the Meditation Resort, however, visitors and residents must wear maroon robes during the day and simple white robes during evening meditations. This has become a means to come together as a close group and signify the intention to pursue meditation wholeheartedly.

Osho’s Transitions Osho’s early devotees characterized him as a mercurial mixture of a madman, a savior, a charlatan, and a saint (Franklin 1992). His various biographies and autobiographical writings can support any of these characterizations, yet there is surprisingly widespread agreement about the basic outlines of his personal story.

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He was born to a Jain family in Kuchawada, India, in 1931 and named Mohan Chandra Rajneesh. Jainism is an independent South Indian faith, closely related to Buddhism. Thus, Rajneesh was raised outside the dominant Hindu paradigm in a tradition that synthesized different philosophies much as his own would three decades later. Rajneesh received an MA in philosophy from Saugar University and immediately took a job at Raipur Sanskrit College (Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya). His lectures created so much controversy that Rajneesh transferred to another university the next year, where he received a promotion to professor in 1960. When classes were not in session, he traveled through India lecturing about politics, sexuality, and spirituality. He was a captivating lecturer who soon gained a loyal following that included a number of wealthy merchants and businessmen. Clients gave ­Rajneesh donations for individual consultations about their spiritual development and daily life. This was commonplace, for throughout India, people seek guidance from learned or holy individuals in the same ways as Americans might consult a psychologist or pastoral counselor, and Rajneesh’s private practice was not unusual in itself (Mehta 1979). The rapid growth of his clientele, however, was somewhat out of the ordinary, suggesting that he was an unusually talented spiritual therapist. By 1964, a group of wealthy Indian backers had set up an educational trust to support Rajneesh and the occasional rural meditation retreats that he led. Like many professionals whose client base grows quickly, Rajneesh acquired a business manager around this time: an upper class, politically wellconnected woman who was both his organizational chief and personal secretary. Rajneesh’s early career was built on his charisma: his intelligence, emotional appeal, and ostensibly direct communication to individuals, even when they were part of a large audience (Weber 1968: 241–245). He was highly energetic, with an alluring emotional volatility that attracted both seekers in India and growing numbers of Europeans and North Americans (Johnson 1992). At the request of university officials, Rajneesh resigned his post at the University of Jabalpur in 1966 and started to use the name Acharya Rajneesh, denoting his primary role as a spiritual teacher. He supported himself by lecturing, offering meditation camps, and counseling affluent clients. His public lectures became more radical: critiquing established politics and religions and advocating for more open, liberated sexuality. Building from the work of the Western philosopher, Gurdjieff, Rajneesh also developed active meditation exercises facilitating individuals’ ability to observe their own physical, mental, and emotional processes.



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Word of mouth and occasional published references to his gifts brought Westerners to the Mt. Abu meditation camps that Acharya Rajneesh directed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1971, I am the Gate was the first of ­Rajneesh’s many books to be published in English. Visitors from the West gathered at his airy Bombay apartment. He sent a number of his international guests back home to start a network of meditation centers in Western Europe and the United States. In 1971, as his following grew and diversified, Rajneesh exchanged the title of Acharya for the more expansive Bhagwan signifying enlightened or awakened one. For the first time, Rajneesh acknowledged that he had experienced the profound nothingness of true satori constituting enlightenment, almost twenty years earlier on March 21, 1953. More Americans and Western Europeans became devotees and an official organizational structure emerged (Carter 1990: 70). Rajneesh often gave Western devotees new names of revered Hindu gods and goddesses, signifying their psychological and spiritual rebirth. Around this time in Bombay, Bhagwan also asked all of his followers to wear saffron orange clothing, a traditional color of holy men in India. The names and clothes signifying instant holiness, coupled with Rajneesh’s freewheeling political and sexual philosophies, deeply offended the local population, while enchanting Westerners, who had begun to outnumber the Indians visiting Rajneesh. His reputation as a radical academic, his philosophy, and the hundreds of privileged Western devotees who flaunted Indian conventions all combined to generate tension with the surrounding culture. That tension, however, functioned to help define the movement for its members and to generate internal solidarity (Erikson 1966). In 1974, Rajneesh relocated his headquarters to the Pune ashram, 100 miles southeast of Bombay. With considerable Western backing and additional financial support from longtime Indian devotees, Bhagwan moved to a six-acre enclave and acquired adjoining real estate in the elite suburb, Koreagon Park. Over the next five years, the Shree Rajneesh Ashram grew to include a meditation hall where the spiritual master could lecture to several thousand people, a smaller auditorium, facilities for a multitude of human potential therapy groups, a medical clinic, cottage industries, restaurants, shops, classrooms, and housing for sannyasins who lived year round at the ashram. The movement was clearly stratified, with affluent and talented devotees receiving the most access to the leader. At this point, Rajneesh enhanced his charisma by donning the long, flowing beard associated with Indian holy men. His wore white robes that differentiated him from all his devotees who dressed in sunrise colors

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(Johnson 1992: S8). He could no longer have regular daily contact with most sannyasins, but he became present everywhere in the ashram through ubiquitous photographs and rumors of occasional, almost random encounters with rank and file sannyasins. In addition, the evening darshans where Rajneesh answered written questions provided a symbolic closeness, as did his habit of presenting important visitors and almost every departing sannyasin with gifts of small wooden boxes or clothing that symbolized his continuing presence in their lives (Goldman 1999). Well-known Western presses, such as Harper and Row, translated some of Bhagwan’s discourses. At the movement’s peak around 1976, close to 30,000 Westerners visited the Shree Rajneesh Ashram yearly, and the worldwide movement included more than 25,000 sannyasins (Milne 1987: 23; Carter 1990: 59–60). After 1976, however, recruitment stagnated and many sannyasins drifted away from the movement or left because they had become disillusioned. There was greater competition in the American spiritual and self-actualization marketplaces, Western economies were constricting, and some influential figures in the human potential movement, like Richard Price of Esalen Institute, publicly denounced violence in the Rajneesh therapy groups (Anderson 1983: 299–302). At the same time, he began to tantalize sannyasins with the possibility of a Buddhafield, a spiritual community built around him and his teachings, but none of the regional governments in India were willing to issue permits for the planned commune. In Pune, sannyasins whispered about death threats to Bhagwan by members of various Indian sects and they shared terrifying descriptions of his growing emotional stress and his declining health. There were also reports of violent incidents between sannyasins and some Indian opponents of the Shree Rajneesh Ashram (Goldman 1999: 24). The Indian government investigated allegations of Rajneesh-sanctioned prostitution, international drug trafficking, gold smuggling, money laundering, and tax evasion. This first period of extreme controversy, 1976 to 1980, created an impetus for Rajneesh to relocate to the United States. In June 1981, the founder and his inner circle flew to New Jersey and the Ashram was shuttered. The movement migrated from India because of the growing external pressures, as the host society confronted Rajneesh’s hostility to traditional rules and values. This confrontation with convention reflected the tensions that are commonly associated with spontaneous, innovative charismatic leadership (Wilson 1987). Rajneesh could have minimized friction and risked losing some of his charismatic appeal, or he could have held his ground in India and faced painful sanctions against him and his sannyasins. Instead, he fled, in order to build his movement in North America.



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In July 1981, Rajneesh’s representatives purchased the six-square-mile Big Muddy Ranch in Central Oregon for $5.9 million, and they started building Rajneeshpuram. There were rumors that the decision to move to Oregon ­reflected the relatively inexpensive price of the ranch and his new personal secretary Sheela Silverman’s misplaced assumption that all of Oregon was peopled by tolerant liberals who smoked marijuana and welcomed other nonconformists. Most sannyasins at Rajneeshpuram were from the United States, although there were small contingents from Western Europe, Australia, and India. They all hoped to blend spirituality and materialism in a communal city that far surpassed the scope of their group’s recently closed Pune ashram. Sannyasins envisioned a utopia of thousands of residents that was also a destination resort and pilgrimage center for spiritual tourists. A few years after Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh’s personal secretary and organizational chief, signed the real estate contracts, Rajneeshpuram eclipsed the beautiful Pune ashram. Crews working around the clock constructed a huge meditation and lecture hall and a rustic open-air mall with restaurants, clothing boutiques, and a bookshop that sold hundreds of books and videotapes by and about Rajneesh. A small private airport, rows of greenhouses, and a sparkling artificial lake were also part of the landscape. From a distance, Rajneeshpuram looked like a magical place, possibly Oz. During his first three and a half years in Oregon, the guru retreated into private meditation and only communicated directly with a handful of personal staff members, delegating all organizational decisions and public relations to Sheela. However, every afternoon Rajneesh slowly drove one of his many Rolls Royces down the hill from his compound, silently acknowledging lines of sannyasins as they bowed and placed roses on the hood of his car. Despite Rajneeshpuram’s apparent success, outsiders often viewed the communal city as far from serene and blissful. From the moment the sannyasins settled in Oregon, they provoked external opposition. Devotees voted for local tax increases that drove retirees out of their homes in Antelope. They challenged customs throughout the state with their unrestrained verbal attacks, explicit discussions of sexuality, and flamboyant clothing in sunrise hues ­ ­(Goldman 2011). Sheela viciously ridiculed Wasco County farmers, ranchers, and legislators as hicks and bigots because of their cultural insularity and their Judeo-Christian religious affiliations. Negative publicity and structured opposition grew dramatically after each of Sheela’s vitriolic public pronouncements, especially following her rant on a nationally aired Nightline show, when she predicted that in

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a hundred years, the state of Oregon would not exist, but the city of Rajneeshpuram would flourish. In September 1984, media spotlighted Sheela’s effort to recruit more than a thousand homeless men as new residents of Rajneeshpuram. Reporters correctly speculated about her desire to swell the pro-Rajneesh voting population and control the Wasco County elections. The strategy was designed to work in tandem with bioterrorism in restaurants and supermarkets throughout the county, because Sheela wanted to make sure that sympathetic voters would vastly outnumber opponents who were too ill to get to the polls. The scheme failed because the state monitored voter registration and challenged the recent arrivals’ legal standing. The pro-Rajneesh candidates withdrew from the election and Sheela gave up her plan. Almost all of the fifteen hundred homeless visitors left Rajneeshpuram within months of their arrival. After the election debacle, Rajneesh’s physician, who has headed the Meditation Resort and official Osho movement for three decades, talked to his guru about the futility of voter fraud and the damage created by seemingly endless confrontations with outsiders. He also documented Sheela’s wanton spending and some of her abusive behavior toward rank and file devotees. Sheela saw the writing on the wall and left for Europe less than a year after the county elections. She was soon extradited back to the United States, where she pled guilty to a number of charges and served twenty-nine months in a federal minimum-security prison before she left the country forever. Shortly after he denounced Sheela, the guru learned about pending federal warrants for his own arrest and he secretly departed. Federal authorities intercepted him and his small entourage after they landed to refuel their Lear Jet en route to the Bahamas. Rajneesh left the United States less than two weeks after his arrest, filing no contest pleas to two counts of immigration fraud and paying fines and prosecution costs of $400,000 (McCormack 1985: 116). When he left the country, the Big Muddy was put up for sale and a small skeleton crew of sannyasins turned out the lights in utopia. In contrast to the outsiders who lived in Wasco County during the 1980s and easily recall almost five years of conflict and victimization, the former residents of Rajneeshpuram barely remember their sojourn in Central Oregon. However, many sannyasins had suffered as much or even more than outsiders (Goldman 2011). Wealthy devotees lost hundreds of thousands of dollars that they had invested in a venture that was supposed to last forever. Workers suffered permanent injuries because of backbreaking labor on construction crews and twelve-hour days in the fields and greenhouses. Countless sannyasins were



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capriciously isolated in Rajneesh medical clinics or surreptitiously fed psychotropic drugs. And while Sheela tried to hold on to her power, Rajneesh’s personal physician was hospitalized for weeks in Bend because one of her cronies injected him with poison. Despite hundreds of incidents within Rajneeshpuram that ranged from work-related exhaustion to attempted murder, most former residents still believe in their guru. If they reconsider their failed communal city at all, it is with far more affection than anger. Debates still rage within and outside the movement about who did what to whom and why. One of the central questions is whether Bhagwan knew about a whole array of Ma Anand Sheela’s plots and criminal activities at Rancho Rajneesh. His resounding assertions that he never knew about Sheela’s misdeeds and crimes helped save the movement. The communal city’s disintegration and the revelations about dangerous activities both outside and inside the movement could have led to the movement’s complete disintegration or at least displacement of Rajneesh as its leader. Instead, most sannyasins accepted Rajneesh’s explanation and blamed his former personal secretary for the misguided and exploitative policies that doomed Rajneeshpuram and threatened the movement’s existence. The founder’s blaming Sheela, resettlement in Pune, and renaming himself as Osho and the group surrounding him as the Osho Movement allowed the movement to rise again. Sannyasins usually trace the derivation of Osho to William James’s word “oceanic,” which implies dissolving into the whole of human existence—in other words, being at one with everything there is. They note that Osho also carries the meaning of “The Blessed One on Whom the Sky Showers Flowers.” Others write that Osho comes from the Japanese language, implying great gratitude and respect for one who expands consciousness (Jina 1993: 53–54). Like almost everything else about Osho Rajneesh, his name itself created initial controversy. It could be interpreted broadly to mean a revered teacher of meditation (Jina 1993: 54). In the twenty-first century, the Osho Meditation Resort throbs with music, newly developed meditations, and a multiversity that offers varied courses and personal growth groups. Some members of Osho’s original inner circle remain in charge of the organization, while other earlier members, like his dentist, resigned to become independent teachers or start Osho Centers in Europe and Asia. A new generation of leaders has been appointed to the inner circle, as others depart for various reasons. Devotees, spiritual seekers, and casual visitors come to the Meditation Resort, visit other centers, and study Osho’s philosophies, as they work to transform themselves and synthesize spirituality and material pleasure.

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Osho’s Philosophies Since 1974 in Pune, almost every word Osho uttered has been faithfully recorded or filmed and published in various forms. He was fond of asserting that there were 108 beads on the malas that his devotees wore and there were likewise 108 paths toward enlightenment. In over one thousand books, which were transcriptions of his lectures, initiation talks, and pithy sayings, almost every major religious and philosophical tradition received Osho’s attention. He lectured about Buddhism, Christianity, Hassidism, Sufism, The Upanishads, and Yoga as well as Marx, Freud, and Henry Ford. These traditions were not always well understood by spiritual seekers, but they melded together in a tasty spiritual stew flavored throughout with Zen Buddhism. Osho asserted that the many internal contradictions and paradoxes in his philosophy were essential to spiritual development and the spiritual seeker could choose to accept or reject any part of them. In the 1970s and 1980s devotees accepted Rajneesh as their ultimate master. Now the emphasis is on commitment to meditation and less on an explicit master/disciple relationship, but the study of Osho’s philosophies remains important. Despite changes, elaborations, and advocacy of individual choice, the two most important themes in Osho’s philosophy remain surprisingly clear and consistent. They were (1) surrender of individual ego and (2) integration of the individual’s material and spiritual selves. Osho’s ten commandments, which he outlined during the time that he was called Acharya Rajneesh, ground the contemporary movement (Osho 2002). True to form, Rajneesh observed that he objected to commandments of any sort, but then he went ahead: 1. Never obey anyone’s command unless it is coming from within you also. 2. There is no God other than life itself. 3. Truth is within you: do not search for it elsewhere. 4. Love is prayer. 5. To become nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment. 6. Life is now and here. 7. Live wakefully. 8. Do not swim—float. 9. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment. 10. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see. Italicized numbers 3, 7, 9, and 10 were underlined in the original. However, while all of these commandments have been foundational for thirty years,



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there has always been considerable latitude for individuals to construct their own meanings of this foundational guidance. Osho returned again and again to his vision of a new man who synthesized the worldly and the godly. His ideal was “Zorba the Buddha,” a consummate being combining the spiritual focus of the Indian mystic with the life-embracing traits of the materialistic Westerner. Zen, Tantra tradition, and the Prosperity Gospel’s messages came together in Rajneesh’s vision: A new human being is needed on earth, a new human being who accepts both, who is scientific and mystic. Who is all for matter and all for spirit. Only then will we be able to create a humanity which is rich on both sides. I teach you the richness of body, richness of soul, richness of this world and that world. To me that is true religiousness. (Rajneesh 1983: 14) Rajneesh’s enthusiastic embrace of materialism stimulated media feeding frenzies. In the United States, his collection of nearly 100 Rolls Royces remains a lasting symbol of Rajneeshpuram for many of the movement’s American critics. The extravagant cars represented both Rajneesh’s embrace of the corporeal world and his tweaking of Westerners’ automobile worship. He owned his first Rolls in India, where there was a tradition of the car’s association with royalty that dated back to the British Raj. His collection, however, only reached epic proportions after he settled in Oregon. Sannyasins appreciated the humor behind the swarm of Rolls Royces and mourned when they were sold to pay off the movement’s American debts. They also rejoiced in their teacher’s luxury watches and other appointments in the same ways that devout members of many other groups, including many Roman Catholics, appreciate their leaders’ splendor. As part of his emphasis on living well, Osho also called for transcendence of traditional gender roles and acceptance of every variety of human sexual expression. Women and men alike were encouraged to merge their own female and male sides and to strive for flexibility in every aspect of their lives (Goldman 1999). The ideal human being was neither overtly male nor stereotypically female, but Rajneesh placed highest value on traditionally feminine traits like intuition, expressiveness, emotionalism, self-awareness, and sensitivity. Men were admonished to nurture their own feminine traits and women were lauded when they acted assertively. Individuals were exhorted to move toward androgyny, without forsaking their gender identities. The most intense current debates about Osho’s doctrine involve the continued centrality of his personal role as a spiritual teacher. Recent devotees

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ask. “To what extent does Osho himself continue to be necessary to his teachings?” The answer from Pune, although not from dissidents at Oshodam, the small, competing ashram in New Delhi, is that Osho’s spirit and his meditations are important, but he never wanted people to focus on his personal identity or interpret his words literally.

The Osho Movement in the Twenty-First Century After Rajneeshpuram collapsed in 1985, American sannyasins who did not follow their spiritual master to Pune tried to gravitate to places with good weather, active alternative cultures, and spiritual diversity, particularly on the American Pacific Coast or in the Southwest. They sometimes migrated in groups or tried to settle nearby one another. During the 1986 Diaspora from Rajneeshpuram, some devotees renounced Rajneesh and embarked on new spiritual paths that were closely related to Osho’s teachings. Most, however, at least temporarily sustained the faith that their spiritual master would guide their futures. Very affluent sannyasins left with no worries about the years that they had devoted to building the ill-fated Buddhafield, because most of their assets had been held in trusts during their Oregon sojourns. Some others reentered their old professions: law, medicine, psychotherapy, or teaching. Some, however, had to restart their careers from the ground up. Those without professional credentials or specific skills had to fill huge four- and five-year holes in their resumes (Gordon 1987: 211–212). But devotees with businesses or academic jobs often helped these less fortunate sannyasins, offering them references or sometimes jobs. One Northwest millionaire recommended more than a dozen sannyasins on the basis of their excellent work in his household or businesses. Most of their work was indeed excellent, but they had done it at the Pune ashram or in Rajneeshpuram. Some contemporary sannyasins note that their years at the communal city provided them with unexpected occupational possibilities. Even in the twentyfirst century, however, they seldom share their Rajneeshpuram histories with their business acquaintances, although many have built solid careers. Participation in the movement exposed them to creative ­problem-solving approaches and the concerns with personal process that they learned in Rajneesh’s personal growth groups enhance their abilities to function in business or the professions. Their recent occupational successes are embedded in the focus, skills, and intense work ethic that they had developed at Rajneeshpuram. None of these individuals has grown rich, but they survive comfortably within the upper middle class.



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For example, a former attorney had supervised one of Rajneeshpuram’s large communal kitchens, because he lacked credentials to practice law in Oregon. When he left the Ranch, he had no career direction at all, except the desire never to practice law again. After house cleaning, waiting on tables, and wandering, he started a restaurant, employing other sannyasins and outsiders as well. Explaining his entrepreneurial success, he said, “Need makes you smart. We had to come up with an answer to life.” Another, who had few educational credentials when she left Oregon, earned a college degree, went on to graduate school in humanistic psychology, started a consulting business, and later founded a successful personal growth center that focuses on meditation. Most of the movement’s first-generation devotees still believe that they found the answer to their fundamental questions about life through Osho. Even those who renounced their sannyas, continue to see Osho as an essential and meaningful part of their histories, somewhat like a former spouse. By sustaining their faith, sannyasins resembled others who are active members of communal new religions for at least two years. Those years fundamentally alter devotees’ goals and ways of looking at the world. Long-term members seldom renounce the spiritual priorities acquired as part of an intense collective religion. Even if they disengage or if their groups collapse, they usually remain faithful to the alternative spiritual stances they have adopted (Goldman 1995; Jacobs 1989; Wright 1987). They may move closer to the mainstream, but they retain the overall spiritual frameworks that they have acquired through their earlier commitment. The current Osho movement builds on the experience and dedication of individuals who were part of the movement’s first generation. They host meditation groups and visiting teachers at small Osho Centers in the United States and Western Europe, but they survive on “day jobs,” some of which are quite lucrative. Only a few live in or at the Osho Meditation Resort. Barker (2011) notes that individuals at the core of new religious movements that began at the same time as Osho’s may be daunted by the prospect of old age without pensions or adequately funded medical care These are issues for some members of Osho’s first generation (Barker 2011: 13). However, most devotees in Oregon joined the movement in their thirties and brought substantial economic and cultural capital with them (Goldman 2012). In central Oregon, the average sannyasin was about 35 years old. Almost 70 percent had degrees from four-year colleges and slightly over half of the college graduates also held advanced graduate or professional degrees (Sandburg et al. 1992). After the communal city collapsed, Osho’s told his devotees to go out in the world and enjoy its material rewards, while remaining true to his teachings. Few members have spent their working lives within the movement and many

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of them have external income sources. Neither the first devotees nor subsequent generations of privileged seekers, like Lady Gaga, have given up worldly pursuits and material benefits to follow him. They have embraced material pursuits and pleasures and followed Osho’s admonitions to care for both their material and spiritual needs. The movement continues to add new spiritually privileged devotees from throughout the world. They construct personal spiritual mosaics that reflect Osho’s calls for mindful meditation and fusion of the material and spiritual. The core of the movement who devote their lives and livelihoods to Osho’s teachings, a few thousand individuals, is probably one-tenth the size of the movement at its peak. But the movement has reached hundreds of thousands of seekers. The Osho Meditation Resort in Pune and the movement around Osho’s teachings continue to grow increasingly decentralized. The Pune leaders suggest that Osho’s philosophies and general spirit are more important than the outmoded worship of his being. It is undeniable that Osho’s influence has spread well beyond the confines of a specific organization, but the center at Pune still holds together worldwide networks of seekers, devotees, and small centers. Newly affluent citizens of three of the four economically ascendant nations, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, have joined the seekers from North America, Western Europe, and Australia who have populated the movement since the 1970s. China still controls tourism and religious communication, so there are few visitors from the PRC, but there is growing interest in Osho in Brazil, Russia, and India itself. New generations in these countries have the material resources to purchase goods and services that might enhance their personal authenticity and contribute to their spiritual growth. They vacation at the Osho Meditation Resort Pune, and many continue to participate in meditations, therapies, and consultations after they return home. Where there are no Osho Centers, the World Wide Web provides access to networks of other devotees, online meditations, and Osho’s early lectures. The Web is a particularly rich source for spiritual seekers of all kinds (Cowan 2005) and the Osho movement continues to add to its sophisticated websites. There are also books, videos, tea sets, and tarot cards with Osho’s imprint that are available by mail through Osho Foundation International and at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Reconstructing History, Surviving Controversy, and Moving On Since the late 1980s the number of full-time devotees in the Osho movement has diminished, but interested spiritual seekers have increased their participation and the movement’s cultural influence has grown. The transformed



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movement benefits from informal networks of sannyasins and small centers, Internet communication of all kinds, and skillful marketing of Osho’s image, doctrines, and practices. In the mid-1980s, leaders in the Rajneesh movement defined success as the creation of a huge utopian city in Oregon, with one hundred thousand residents within two decades (Carter 1990). But Osho’s death led the new organizational leaders to define the movement’s success in terms of its global cultural influence rather than growing numbers of adherents or a communal city. The revision of the movement’s central goal has enabled the Osho organization to claim success on its own terms (Wilson 1987; Dawson 2006). They argue that Osho legitimated the importance of cultural influence rather than numerical growth in his own words: “I am so inconsistent, that it is impossible to create a dead institution around me, because a dead institution will need the infrastructure of a dead philosophy. . . . I will leave you open” (Osho [1982] 2001: 232). Johnson (1992) noted that many founders were not particularly concerned with their spiritual movement’s organizational survival after their own deaths. A legacy of global influence might be all that was compatible with both Osho’s primary doctrine and his leadership style. The advent of the Internet, with Facebook, YouTube, and other websites exponentially expands that influence (Cowan 2005). The goal of living in the moment, a central tenet of Osho’s doctrine impeded the development of a stable bounded movement destined to last over many generations. However, the movement’s fluidity and its emphasis on material well-being as a platform for spiritual development has added to Osho’s appeal to younger, more affluent spiritual seekers. The movement has become culturally influential because Osho’s Inner Circle charted a future in which the Osho Meditation Resort served as a hub for worldwide centers and individual clients with varying degrees of commitment. The Osho movement has promised and delivered personal transformations to seekers since the late 1960s, and it has likewise engaged in processes of transforming itself over the decades. Its contemporary global success rests on the redefinition of earlier conflicts and controversies as inconsequential, minor historical moments. Renaming was part of the movement’s rebranding and successful distancing from its earlier difficulties. Rajneesh renamed himself Osho and created a central council to carry on organizational duties at the end of his lifetime and afterwards. By redefining Osho as an avatar rather than an embodied master, the Pune leadership could concentrate on reinterpreting and popularizing his message. Strategies of distance and diffusion effectively overcame the conflicts during the movement’s first two decades of controversy and transformed it into a twenty-first-century cultural force.

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The movement’s transformation began when Rajneesh and his devotees blamed Sheela and her inner circle for the movement’s debacle and ostracized them. Then the movement began to recover because it had the money to reopen the Pune Ashram and turn it into the vibrant Osho Meditation Resort. Successful relocation rested on a handful of members’ substantial monetary support and the skills and dedication of hundreds of other devotees. After it moved to Pune, the Osho movement successfully engaged in the “four-R’s” of self-transformation: Relocate to a special destination. Rename the movement. Reorganize the leadership structure. Reframe doctrine to support new practices and substantial outreach. These four-R’s have also been part of the process of individual transformation that makes the Osho movement so attractive to spiritual seekers. Individuals seeking self-transformation may relocate to new homes, find new names and personal identities, reorganize their priorities, and reframe their life histories. Osho paved the way for his movement to survive and even thrive, when he urged diffusion of its focus to worldwide cultural influence: There will be no need to make any special nook and corner for me. I will be dissolved in my people. Just as you can taste the sea and it is salty, you will be able to taste any of my sannyasins and you will find the same taste: the taste of Bhagwan [Osho], the taste of the Blessed One (Osho [1982] 2001: 239–240).

References Anderson, Walter Truett. 1983. The Upstart Spring: Esalen and the American Awakening. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Barker, Eileen. 2011. “Ageing in New Religions: The Varieties of Later Experiences.” DISKUS: The Online Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion 12. http://www.basr.ac.uk/diskus/diskus12/Barker.pdf. Bhusan, Nyay. 2011. “Lady Gaga Reveals Love of Books by Philosopher Osho.” Hollywood Reporter Online, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lady-gagareveals-love-books-254661. Carter, Lewis F. 1990. Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cowan, Douglas E. 2005. Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet. New York: Routledge. Dawson, Lorne L. Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. 2006. New York: Oxford University Press.



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Duchane, Sangeet. 2011. “I Am All for Fighting.” Osho News Online Magazine. March 28. http://www.oshonews.com/2011/03/fighting-sangeet/. Erikson, Kai T. 1966. Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: John Wiley. Franklin, Satya Bharti. 1992. The Promise of Paradise: A Woman’s Intimate Story of the Perils of Life with Rajneesh. New York: Station Hill Press. Goldman, Marion S. 1995. “Continuity in Collapse: Departures from Shiloh.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34: 342–353. ———. 1999. Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ———. 2011. “Second Chance Family at Rajneeshpuram.” Oregon Humanities/Belong Issue (Summer): 21–26. ———. 2012. The American Soul Rush: Esalen and the Rise of Spiritual Privilege. New York: New York University Press. Gordon, James S. 1987. The Golden Guru. Lexington, MA: Stephen Greene Press. Jacobs, Janet Liebman. 1989. Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting from New Religions. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Jina, Anand. 1993. “The Work of Osho Rajneesh: A Thematic Overview.” In The Rajneesh Papers, edited by Susan Palmer and Arvind Sharma, 47–56. Delhi: Motilal Banardidass, Ltd. Johnson, Benton. 1992. “On Founders and Followers: Some Factors in the Development of New Religious Movements.” Sociological Analysis 53 (supplement): S1–S13. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1962. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McCormack, Win. 1985. The Rajneesh Files: 1981–1986. Portland, OR: New Oregon Publishers. Mehta, Gita. 1979. Karma Kola: Marketing the Mystic East. New York: Simon and Schuster. Milne, Hugh. 1987. Bhagwan: The God That Failed. New York: Saint Martin’s. Newman, Andy. 2008. “It’s Not Easy Picking a Path to Enlightenment.” New York Times, July 3, E2. Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) 1983. The Everyday Meditator: A Practical Guide. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle. ———. [1982] 2001. The Goose is Out. Mumbai: Osho International Foundation. ———. 2002. Otoons Website for Osho’s Ten Commandments. http://www.otoons. de/osho/10.htm. Stark, Rodney. 1996. “Why Religious Movements Succeed or Fail: A Revised General Model.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 11: 133–146. Sundberg, Norman, Marion Goldman, Nathan Rotter, and Douglas Smythe. 1992. “Personality and Spirituality: Comparative TAT’s of High Achieving Rajneeshees.” Journal of Personality Assessment 59: 326–339.

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Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society. 2 vols. edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wilson, Bryan R. 1987. “Factors in the Failure of New Religious Movements.” In The Future of New Religious Movements edited by David Bromley and Phillip Hammond. Macon Georgia: Mercer University Press. Wood, Linda Sargent. 2008. “Contact, Encounter, and Exchange at Esalen: A Window on Late Twentieth-Century American Spirituality.” Pacific Historical Review 77: 473–487. Wright, Stuart A. 1987. Leaving Cults: The Dynamics of Defection. Washington, DC: Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

12

Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum Incident a critical introduction Martin Repp

Introduction During the second half of the 1980s, a small group of Yoga practitioners in the Tokyo area began to gather around a young man whose name was Asahara Shoko.1 Pictures in publications of this time depict the leader and his disciples peacefully meditating in natural environs such as riverbeds or mountain slopes. The membership of the group, now called Aum Shinrikyo, began to grow. Five years later, however, visual depictions had changed drastically to imagery of catastrophes and doomsday. In 1995 police finally raided their compounds and apprehended the leaders and a number of followers, who were put on trial for committing not only murder but also the first terrorist nerve gas attack in history. These acts of crime and terror became known as the Aum incident. What had taken place in the meantime? How can these drastic changes and the terrible outcomes be “explained”? Those are the questions any treatise on Aum Shinrikyo faces. The following introduction into Aum (as the group will be called henceforth) and the Aum incident will follow the historical order, starting with the beginnings.

Aum Shinrikyo as Religion The Founder Beginnings Aum Shinrikyo was founded by Asahara Shoko, who was born in 1955 as Matsumoto Chizuo in Kumamoto prefecture in Kyushu. He grew up in a family of modest circumstances. Since he was blind in one eye and had limited vision

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in the other, he was sent to a government-run boarding school for blind students. After graduation, he became an acupuncturist—a profession traditionally held by people with visual disabilities. In 1977, he moved to Tokyo, and in the following year he married Ishii Tomoko, who subsequently gave birth to six children (AEN, May 16, 1995). During this time he turned to traditional Asian medicine and developed interest in fortune telling, divination, and Daoism. His practice of acupuncture and Asian medicine in Funabashi, Chiba prefecture (near Tokyo), seemed to have been quite successful. Between 1981 and 1984, he was a member of the new religious group Agonshu.2 Here, he became acquainted with yoga teaching and practice, and with the early Buddhist Agama Sutras.3 It is likely that Asahara also became familiar with esoteric Buddhism (mikkyo) through books of Agon-shu’s founder, Kiriyama Seiyu, who claimed to have caused the “mikkyo boom” in Japan during the 1980s (Reader 1988: 248). During that time, yoga and esoteric Buddhism, especially the idea of acquiring “supernatural powers,” became attractive for young Japanese, who were interested in religion while remaining outside the established Buddhist schools.4 In 1985 the New Age magazine Twilight Zone published a picture of Asahara “levitating” during yoga practice on the cover page and included a report about him (cf. Asahara 1991b). This publication caused some young people who were interested in yoga and “supernatural powers” to gather around Asahara. They became the nucleus of a group called Aum shinsen-nokai or “Aum group of mountain ascetics,” which was formed in April 1986.5 In the following summer, Asahara traveled to India together with his close disciple Ishii Hisako in order to pursue religious practice under the guidance of a yoga master. However, because he became disappointed with the guru’s greediness, he continued to practice on his own. At the end of his two-month stay, in July 1986, he claimed to have attained enlightenment, the “state of absolute freedom, happiness and joy where one’s suffering is extinguished and [the cycle of ] life and death [is] transcended.”6 From fall 1986 on, members of the group began to “leave their houses” (shukke) and become nuns or monks.7 They started to form a community of celibates, called samgha, in order to dedicate their life to religious practice.

The Founding Asahara Shoko’s original name was Matsumoto Chizuo. He assumed the new name in 1987 because it is written with Chinese characters that are believed to cause luck.8 In the same year, Asahara also changed the name of his group to Aum Shinrikyo or “Aum Teaching of Absolute Truth” (Vajrayana Sacca no. 9: 36). The group thereby assumed clearly a religious character. The change from



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“mountain asceticism” (shinsen) to “absolute [religious] truth” (shinri) and the replacement of the neutral term kai (group, association) by kyo (religious teaching or school) mark the shift toward a religious organization. Some members did not agree with this change and left the group, because kyo sounded “too old fashioned” or “too religious” (Asahara 1992c: 79), in other words, it resembled established religion. In line with the development toward an institutionalization of the young group, Aum applied to the Tokyo metropolitan government in 1987 for recognition as a legal religious body. Concerning the group’s name, Asahara (1992e: vi) explained the term “truth” by reasoning that Shakyamuni had not called his teaching “Buddhism,” but “truth.” Besides yoga, emphasis was now placed on the theory and practice of Buddhism, as, for example, the frequent use of terms such as “suffering” and “enlightenment” demonstrates. In August 1987, the first edition of Aum Shinrikyo’s journal Mahayana was published, where Asahara wrote: I tried all kinds of practices such as Taoism, Yoga, Buddhism, incorporating their essence into my training. My goal was supreme spiritual realization and enlightenment. . . . Finally, I reached my goal in the holy vibration of the Himalayas; I attained supreme realization and enlightenment. . . . But my soul . . . was not satisfied. I could not bear the fact that only I was happy and the other people were still in the world of suffering. I began to think: ‘I will save other people at the sacrifice of my own self.’ (Asahara 1992b: 12–13) This statement indicates the shift from a circle of yoga practitioners, who aimed at individual self-perfection, to a Mahayana Buddhist group that intended to liberate other people. This development can also be perceived as Aum becoming a Buddhist renewal movement, as a statement by the Dalai Lama, reportedly spoken to Asahara during a visit to Dharamsala in February 1987, suggests: Dear friend, look at the Buddhism of Japan today. It has degenerated into ceremonialism and has lost the essential truth of the teachings. As the situation continues, Buddhism will vanish from Japan. Something needs to be done, and you should spread real Buddhism there. You can do that well. If you do so, I shall be very pleased and it will help me with my mission. (Asahara 1988: 10). Asahara (1988: 11) used this statement to legitimize his activities. For this reason, he also visited several Tibetan leaders, such as Kalu Rinpoche in 1988,

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or Khamtul Rinpoche in 1991. During a journey to Sri Lanka in 1991, Asahara (1992f: 154) is said to have been praised as “the only man who can save the world.” On this occasion the prime minister presented him with “a piece of Buddha Sakyamuni’s relics,” an important symbol of religious power and authority.9 Such attempts at religious authorization resulted in Aum statements such as, “The Buddha in our times is Master Shoko Asahara.”10 Asahara also claimed to be an incarnation of the Hindu god Shiva, the “Lord of Yoga.”11 Such an elevation is also reflected in his titles: whereas in early Aum publications Asahara is called teacher or guru (sensei), his appellation then changes to “Revered Master” (sonshi), to which since 1992 the title “His Holiness” (saisho) is added (Shinri, no. 19)—an expression usually reserved for figures such as the Dalai Lama or the Pope.

Political Ambitions From early on, it seems, Asahara not only aimed at reaching religious ends but also, as head of a growing movement, pursued political goals. The combination of religious and political ambitions is not uncommon among Japanese religions. After some difficulties, Aum Shinrikyo gained the legal status of a religious organization (shukyo hojin) in August 1989. In late 1989 Aum Shinri-kyo founded the Shinri-to or “Truth Party.” Subsequently, Asahara and his disciples campaigned for the Lower House Elections scheduled to take place in February 1990.12 In one of the campaign pamphlets, Asahara wrote: “It takes political action to do what a religion cannot do. Therefore, I am taking a political approach to my activities” (DY, May 17, 1995). During the campaign, Aum called, for instance, for the abolition of the consumer tax that had been introduced to Japan not long before. It is not clear what Asahara’s real goals in this campaign were.13 The “Truth Party” did not win a single seat in the election for the Lower House. This failure was perceived by Aum as a rejection by society, which in turn became one of the causes for its subsequent anti-society stance.

The Followers In spite of Asahara’s political failure, he was able to attract thousands of mostly young followers. What kind of people were they? What did they find so attractive about his teachings? As many of the followers’ testimonies state, they felt that society and established religions were unable to provide answers to what they were searching for: finding the meaning of life, filling an inner void, gaining personal understanding and acceptance, and healing psychological wounds and physical frailties. Most of the Aum followers were



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disappointed with a materialistically oriented world and were searching for spiritual ways of life. It should be recalled that during the 1980s Japan had reached the height of the “Bubble Economy.” In the following section, some examples of followers’ testimonies will illustrate their concerns. The first problem of finding one’s own identity in modern society is expressed by a young woman: Before joining Aum I was always afraid of showing my real self to other people and was always conscious of other people’s eyes. I was always hiding myself because I wanted other people to have a better image of me, or not dislike me. . . . I was never free from worries. . . . The teaching of Aum Shinrikyo was very easy to understand and I found answers to many questions I had, including the meaning of life for which I had been searching for a long time. . . . [The m]aster understands me better than I do myself and always gives me the right advice. (Asahara 1993a: 164–165) Asahara spoke a religious language that many of his peers could easily understand.14 Moreover, he also conveyed the feeling of personal acceptance. However, Aum not only provided answers to personal problems but also offered a kind of alternative society, as the statement of another woman suggests: “[Aum members] were always cheerful and never said bad things about others, which was quite unlike ordinary society. . . . I could actually see that it was brighter than the other places outside” (Asahara 1993a: 166). Next, the problem of inner void felt in a society ruled by work and achievement is addressed by another follower: “I was feeling stagnant in everything and had lost interest in the worldly way of life. I felt I needed something that would give me strong mental satisfaction, and realized that this thirst could not be healed by devoting myself to work or by enjoying myself” (Asahara 1993a: 161). Third, the related theme of personal growth is addressed by a young man who was impressed by Asahara’s charisma: “I was able to meet with the supreme guru, Master Shoko Asahara in this life. His great power has given me peace of mind and many wonderful mystical experiences” (Asahara 1993a: 207). He concluded, “An ordinary man was I, but thanks to the Great Guru I was able to grow mentally and spiritually” (208). Young people’s concern for personal change or growth, and even for development from the ordinary to the extraordinary, is expressed by a follower who had resigned from a good position in a large company: “I had enough of the materialistic world of business. . . . I couldn’t figure out what I should do or why I was there.” Then he

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tried Aum’s meditation techniques and summarized his new experiences as follows: “I felt this bursting sensation from inside. It was amazing.” Such extraordinary experiences certainly were attractive for young people who ventured into hitherto unknown dimensions of life. In addition, this man felt attracted by Asahara himself, as he says, “I admire the supreme master . . . because he tells us things nobody else could explain so clearly and logically” ( JT, June l, 1995). One attraction of Aum was certainly its postulation that “Buddhism is science” (see below). It thus attempted to clear the image of religion from “superstition” or “irrationality.” The same tendency to bridge the gap can also be observed in other new religions such as Sukyo Mahikari, Agon-shu, and Kofuku no Kagaku.15 These new experiences in Aum also provided the missionary zeal that is characteristic of new religious movements. For example, Joyu Fumihiro, head of the Russian Aum branch and after March 1995 Aum’s talented spokesman for some time, wrote: “I would like to do my best to lead others to practice who are vexed with ego like myself. . . . I would like to do my best in cooperating with the salvation activities the master is planning in order to avoid a war” (Asahara 1988: 158). The quotations above show that the followers’ experiences centered around the charisma of the group’s founder. For example, Hayakawa Kiyohide, one of Aum Shinrikyo’s leading figures, stated about his first encounter with Asahara: “While feeling some strain as I listened to his words, I was completely under the spell of the gentle and mild atmosphere of the master I met for the first time” (Asahara 1988: 208). This leads to an examination of the peculiar nature of the relationship and interaction between Asahara and his followers. Young people, searching for an authentic religious way, met a master whose “personal magnetism” (Asahara 1993a: 256), charisma, and teaching provided answers to their problems. Nevertheless, the guru also rendered himself indispensable to his followers by claiming, for instance, “Be aware that you cannot get Dharma without asking it of me” (Asahara 1991c: 85). Elsewhere he stated, “So those of you who are aiming to attain enlightenment must come to me and receive an initiation from me” (Asahara 1992c: 82; cf. 1989b: 26). In such a way, the followers became dependent on the leader. The authority that Asahara claimed for himself eventually extended to the demand that the followers replace their own will with his own (Asahara 1992d: 69). Even the Buddhist precepts could, as far as his believers were concerned, be replaced with Asahara’s directives (Asahara 1988: 84). The admiration by his followers certainly helped to increase Asahara’s enormous self-esteem. After police raids of the Aum facilities in March 1995



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had begun, in a last message Asahara called upon his followers to act as his hands, feet, and head, and thereby to bring about his “salvation-plan.”16 A former follower, who had helped to abduct her father in order to have his estate transferred to Aum, later claimed in court that Asahara “was willing to use any means to serve the interest of the cult. . . . I was his puppet and slave” ( JT, 1/2/1995). After experiencing the abuse of power, the believers turned from enthusiasm to disappointment. As the dignity of the individual was not respected within the group, so Aum treated people outside similarly, as its record of crimes shows (see below).

The Teaching The teaching and practice of Aum developed gradually through combining astrology, Hinduism (yoga), various forms of Buddhism, and Occidental apocalyptic ideas. These elements, taken from very different religious traditions, times, and geographical regions, coexisted until they were rejected by Aum owing to internal developments. Such a broad variety of religious elements reflects the contemporary religious situation in Japan. For understanding Aum, one has to take into account the spiritual landscape of the 1970s and 1980s in Japan. One early important influence on Aum’s development was Agon-shu with its Yoga practice and emphasis on early Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and esoteric Buddhism. Additionally, popular and academic authors exerted a formidable influence among many young Japanese, including Aum members. Nakamura Hajime’s Genshi butten (Original Buddhist Scriptures) (cf. Asahara 1991b: 34), Nakazawa Shinichi’s book on Tibetan esoteric Buddhism Niji no kaitei (Guide of the rainbow), and Sahoda Tsuruji’s Japanese translation of the Yoga Sutra and his books on yoga were widely read at the time. With respect to apocalyptic ideas, Goto Ben’s numerous books on Nostradamus and his prophecies published since 1973 became very popular. Once the Japanese economic success had satisfied the material needs of people, interest in the “spiritual world” (seishin sekai) started to flourish in Japan during the 1980s. These developments also have to be understood in the context of the New Age movement worldwide. Aum Shinrikyo has to be seen in such an environment. As mentioned, Asahara started his professional career with traditional Chinese medicine. He also developed an interest in various forms of East Asian astrology and divination (sensei-jutsu, unmei-gaku; Asahara 1991b: 24; cf. 28–29). However, he said that astrology disappointed him because it did not help him to find true happiness (Asahara 1995a: 32). It could inform about future destiny, but not change it (Asahara 1991b: 27). Then he turned to

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Daoism (shinsen) from which the first name of his group was derived. Daoist practice, he expected, would provide eternal youth, immortality, and supernatural powers. It was here, that the practice of ki (bio-energy) enabled him to “awaken Kundalini.” By the controlled flow of ki through the body, the chakras were activated and resulted in the awakening of Kundalini. Soon, he turned to yoga, because it was for him a faster method of reaching the same goal (Asahara 1993a: 33–35). Asahara explains how the two religious traditions of Daoism and yoga relate to each other: “It is an interesting thing that each practice, with its different starting point and different contents, follows the same path, which I believe has its own significance. This is the reason I incorporate other kinds of practices into my Yoga” (1993a: 38). Asahara was aware of the problem of “syncretism.” Through practical experiments and peculiar ways of reasoning he tried to achieve a homogeneous system.

Hinduism Aum began as a group of yoga practitioners. In his early publication Seishi o koeru (1986), Asahara explains the process of yoga practice as follows: First, a human being experiences suffering in this world; thereby, the religious seeker is led to trust the guru or the god Shiva and take refuge in them. Then this person practices yoga in order to “awaken Kundalini,” that is “spiritual energy which raises the human spirit to higher dimensions” (Asahara 1993a: 26). As the practice is continued, the practitioner passes through consecutive phases of ecstasy, joy, calmness, and lightness, to finally reach samadhi, the state in which the ultimate liberation from suffering, the state “beyond life and death,” is achieved. Later, Asahara modified this process and claimed that the practice of yoga leads only as far as to ecstasy.17 He states that he had found the later phases through own experience and then also in Tibetan Buddhism (Asahara 1993a: 37–40). Aum’s central “object” of veneration is Shiva. Asahara himself claimed to have his enlightenment certified by this deity. Since then, Shiva played a decisive role in his career, as Asahara says: “I myself have no guru in this life. I taught myself depending on the memory of my past lives. When I came to a deadlock which I could not manage to break, Lord Shiva gave me a suggestion” (1988: 98). According to Asahara (1992c: 81), the name “Aum Shinrikyo” also derives from such a revelation. In the Hindu pantheon, Shiva represents the element of chaos and dynamics that leads through destruction to new beginnings. After the Aum incident, the media focused only on the deity’s destructive character in order to “explain” the possible metaphysical background of Aum’s violent developments.18 It should be maintained, however, that the deity has also a positive



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aspect because as the “Lord of Yoga,” Shiva destroys the spiritual hindrances of the yoga practitioners and guides them through the perils of practice to the ultimate religious goal.

“Hinayana” and Mahayana Buddhism In his search for attaining “ultimate happiness,” Asahara proceeded from yoga to “Hinayana Buddhism,” the oldest Buddhist tradition.19 The “original Buddhism” (genshi bukkyo), Shakyamuni’s direct teachings, he claims, changed his life (Asahara 1991b: 34–38). True happiness, he realized, could be found in attaining awakening (satori) or liberation (gedatsu). Asahara (1990: 12) considered the teaching of the Agama Sutras and that of yoga compatible, since both focus on attainment of satori. Hence, Aum followers continued to practice yoga, and analogies were drawn between these two religious paths in order to maintain consistency (cf. Asahara 1988: 63). Asahara claims that Shakyamuni’s oldest, most authentic teaching and practice are contained in the Agama Sutras, and for this reason they enable a practitioner to surely attain liberation (Asahara 1991b: 36; 1995a: 25). He criticizes the Mahayana Buddhist schools in Japan for having departed from “Buddha’s original teaching.” For this reason, its followers were not able to attain true awakening and liberation. In contrast, the original Buddhist sutras and the teachings of Aum conform with each other completely (Asahara 1990: 156). New religions, like Aum, try to acquire authorization by basing themselves on “old” and “authentic” scriptures that predate those on which established Buddhist schools rely. Aum’s shift from “Hinayana” to Mahayana Buddhism is marked by the publication of the magazine Mahayana, beginning in August 1987. Asahara declared in 1989: “Right now, Aum is Mahayana, the middle vehicle” (1992c: 34). The “Four Noble Truths” and the “Eightfold Holy Path” now formed the “essence of Aum’s doctrine” (Asahara 1992b: 51). Concepts like karma and suffering moved further into the center of the teaching. Asahara tried to provide “evidence for the law of karma” by drawing direct connection between certain actions of well-known Japanese personalities and their subsequent fate. A famous baseball player, for example, had to give up his career early because he had appeared in a commercial for insect spray, thus violating the Buddhist precept prohibiting killing. Or a TV personality died of tongue cancer, according to Asahara (1993b: 64, cf. 86–87, 138), because of the karma of speech. Bad karma results in suffering; however, suffering is also eradicated by further suffering. Addressing his disciples, Asahara writes: “The suffering you are experiencing now is the suffering of the three miserable realms [of hell, hungry spirits, and animals] which you would have to suffer in your

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next lives. Therefore, you should suffer a lot and practice a lot to overcome the suffering, and attain true freedom, happiness and joy” (1992d: 122). Karma has “to be washed off” by suffering (Asahara 1993b: 74). In addition to this cleansing function of suffering for one’s own liberation, suffering for others also plays a role. Aum believers should proceed from the first form of suffering to the second (Asahara 1992c: 29). Whereas, according to Asahara, “Hinayana” aims at “supreme enlightenment or emancipation of oneself,” Mahayana aims at “ultimate freedom and happiness of others” (1993a: p. xi). Aum publications frequently mention the Mahayana Vow to save all sentient beings. The followers’ “Affirmation of Suffering Vow” reads as follows: “I make my suffering my joy; I make other’s suffering my own suffering” (Asahara 1992b: 93). This concept of suffering stems from the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. A bodhisattva aims at attaining perfect awakening by taking upon the suffering of other living beings and thereby helping them to attain awakening. According to Asahara, salvation occurs in “Four Stages of Entering the Stream” in order to cross the ocean of birth and death. As for the first stage, there are three forms of practice: “The first thing you should do is to consider the Great Lord Shiva, Buddhas, and the Guru as one, as the embodiment of the truth, and to take refuge in them. To take refuge means to learn their teachings, practice offering and to do service for them” (Asahara 1992d: 50). Second, one “should take refuge in the teaching, or the absolute truth” (shinri); and third, one “should take refuge in the people who are practicing the teaching” (1992d: 50). Asahara thus starts with the traditional Three Treasures (sanbo) of Buddha, dharma (teaching), and samgha (community of monks and nuns) and identifies them with his own person and organization. The second stage consists in learning “the teaching over and over,” in listening “to the tapes of my lectures five, ten, or fifteen times, to read [Aum’s journal] Mahayana five, ten, or fifteen times” (1992d: 50). The third stage, then, lies in shattering “our ­erroneous notions with the information we have taken in the second stage.” The fourth stage, finally, is “to put what you have thought into practice” (1992d: 50). Here, Asahara identifies the Buddhist teaching and practice immediately with that of Aum. Aum’s shift toward Mahayana Buddhism with the bodhisattva ideal of universal salvation in 1987/88 indicates its simultaneous opening toward society. The development of Asahara’s religious teachings can be understood in the context of Aum’s relationship and interaction with society at large. We recall Aum’s legal and public recognition as religious organization and its participation in the Lower House elections in 1989/90. However, after it failed to succeed in the election and owing to other events, Aum leadership became



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disappointed with Japanese society. The next step of Aum’s religious development has to be seen in this context.

Tantra-Vajrayana One of Asahara’s main concerns was the fast growth of Aum’s membership. In order to achieve this goal, in his view, the spiritual progress of his followers had to be accelerated. For this reason, in spring 1990 he introduced the ­“Tantra-Vajrayana System of Practice,” a form of esoteric Buddhism. For Asahara, this was the “fastest path to attain enlightenment and higher realization” (Asahara 1992c: 114). In March 1990, Asahara declared, “Aum Shinrikyo . . . has passed through Hinayana and Mahayana and is now entering the realm of Tantra-Vajrayana” (1991c: 78). Considering the chronological context for this stage of development, this change took place just at the time when Aum Shinrikyo experienced its first harsh criticism by society. In fall 1989, the weekly Sunday Mainichi published a series of articles criticizing Aum members’ practice of “leaving the house” (shukke). Electoral defeat happened in February 1990. In August 1990, troubles with neighbors and alleged ­infractions of the law for constructing buildings in Namino-son (Kyushu), where Aum Shinrikyo had begun to build the “Lotus Village” complex, ­occurred. Asahara perceived this criticism as “persecution” (honan), and he suspected that his electoral defeat was manipulation by the government.20 During the process of doctrinal changes, Asahara (1991c: 71) attempted to clarify the consistency of his teaching by identifying the triad of “Hinayana,” Mahayana, and Tantra-Vajrayana with Raja Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, and Mahamudra Yoga. The change was also reflected in the publication of the new journal Vajrayana Sacca in the beginning of fall 1994. For him, this shift was not so much a break with earlier teachings but a different emphasis while maintaining continuity. Asahara explained the meaning of Tantric teaching as follows: Parents accumulate bad deeds because of their children. They work hard; they even lie for their children. . . . However, when the children attain enlightenment and start to save other beings, the bad deeds instantly change into good deeds. This is a Tantric way of thinking. The parents go to a higher world because their children could not live if they had not committed bad deeds. (1991c: 65) The comparison with the parents’ “white lie” derives from the Lotus Sutra, which proposes the application of skillful means (hoben) in order to save sentient beings. This concept certainly was not designed for abuse, but during

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the history of Buddhism it occasionally became a justification for abuse. According to Asahara, Tantric Buddhism allows the principle that “the end justifies the means” (cf. AEN, April 26, 1996). Asahara proceeds to reverse the generally acknowledged value system by stating: If a guru has a crystal clear mind; if a being can see through everything, there will be no lies for him; lies won’t mean anything to him. We’ve been carrying a lot of ideas with us ever since we were born. “Good” is one of these ideas and “bad” is also one of these ideas. Before World War II in Japan, it was considered good to die for the country; it was good to die for the emperor. But after World War II under the Peace Constitution and the compulsory educational system, people have come to think it is nonsense to die for the country or for the emperor. Why? What I want to tell you is that ideas are not substantial; they change according to their conditions. Good and bad also changes according to its conditions. Let’s say someone has lied to make someone else practice the teachings of truth. The fact that he has lied will certainly incur him bad karma; but the fact that he has guided someone to truth earns him merit. . . . From a Tantric point of view, it is considered good because you benefit others at your own sacrifice. (1992b:95) In reversing established value systems, Asahara goes so far as to justify murder for religious purpose. Already by January 1987, he reportedly taught: The teachings of esoteric Buddhism of Tibet were pretty savage. For instance, when a guru ordered a disciple to kill a thief, the disciple went ahead and did it as an act of virtue. . . . When your guru orders you to take someone’s life, it’s an indication that the person’s time is already up. In other words, you are killing that person at exactly the right time and thereby letting that person have his poa. (AEN, April 26, 1996) In Tibetan Buddhism, poa designates a ritual performed by a lama in order to lead the soul of a deceased person to a higher spiritual dimension. In the beginning of, and publicly throughout, Aum’s development, this term was used in the conventional meaning.21 Eventually, however, among senior Aum leaders poa became a euphemism for murder sanctioned on religious grounds. In a later speech, Asahara allegedly stated: The end justifies the means. Let’s say there’s a man whose vices are so many that he is certain to go to hell when he dies. If an enlightened



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individual determines that it’s best to put an end to his life sooner and actually goes ahead and kills him, this act would be seen as plain murder by society in general. But in the light of our doctrine, the killing amounts to letting the man have his poa. As such, any enlightened person will see at once that both the killer and the person to be killed are going to benefit from the act. (AEN, April 26, 1996) Apart from the inversion of values, the crucial problem was that there was no check on Asahara’s decisions because he assumed absolute authority.22

Science and Religion The Japanese media frequently noted with surprise the “scientific” character of Aum as a religious group. Many young scientists belonged to the group. With scientific instruments they measured the impact of meditation practices on practitioners. This aspect, however, was not always characteristic for Aum. In the beginning, Asahara (1991d: 2) still believed the popular notion of an antagonism between religion (or “supernatural power”) and science. According to personal information of a member belonging to the early group of monks and nuns, it was the gifted young scientist Murai Hideo who after joining the group launched the scientific and technological twist in Aum’s development. The initial yoga practice, performed naturally with the body, was increasingly supplemented by technical devices, such as the electrical headgear called PSI (Perfect Salvation Initiation), or later by chemical drugs. The effects of religious practices on the practitioner’s body, for example, during the underground and underwater samadhis, were measured by scientific instruments. Aum thus tried to combine religion and science in various ways. In this respect, Aum is no exception; other Japanese new religions try to prove scientifically the effectiveness of their practice and the truth of their teaching as well. The publication of a series of articles treating the theme of religion and science began in Aum’s journal Mahayana in November 1987 (no. 4: 70– 71), entitled “Treat the Truth Scientifically: Process of the Creation of the Universe” (Shinri o kagakka suru: Uchu sosei no purosesu). The articles of the series were written by an Aum member with the pen name “Oumushutain” and were published until November 1988. “Oumu-shutain” is the Japanese pronunciation of “Aum” and “stein” derived from the combination of “Aum” + “Einstein.” The author’s real name was Murai Hideo (cf. Aum Press 1995: 188–255), who is said to have had a very high IQ.23 In the first article the author claims that with its “yoga theory” Aum can actually prove the astrophysical “Big bang theory” (Mahayana, no. 4: 70). The

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author sees similarities between yoga and the scientific models of the universe, and draws the conclusion that they are identical (Mahayana, no. 4: 71); in other words, science proves the truth of religion. Another series of articles entitled “Through Academic Verification: True Religion is Science!” was published in Vajrayana Sacca (no. 1 [August 1994] – no. 12 [July 1995]). The author Otaki Toshinari claims that the methods of Aum Shinrikyo and those applied in sciences conform with each other. He sees the characteristics of science in (1) its logical character of analyzing cause, condition, and result of a phenomenon; (2) its objectivity; and (3) its providing proofs, or in the model of theory, test, and verification. These three characteristics, he says, are shared by Aum’s methodology (Vajrayana Sacca, no. 1: 123–125). Because of the common methodology, he calls a union between religion and science “true religion” (Vajrayana Sacca, no. 3: 155). Asahara (1995b: 35) once called the envisaged identity of science and religion “spiritual science” (seishin kagaku). Joyu Fumihiro, who had quit a promising career at the National Space Development Agency in order to become a monk in Aum, underwent an “underground samadhi” in a buried airtight container in November 1991 (Shinri, nos. 4 and 5). The data of the impact on the practitioners were recorded by medico-technical instruments in order to “prove” the supernatural powers of these religious practices. Thereby Aum intended to provide scientific proof for gedatsu, the ultimate liberation from the cycle of birth and death. These tests provided “proof for the truth,” and this meant that “Aum is the Truth” (Shinri, no. 5: 30–32). According to Asahara, this scientific verification of extraordinary religious experiences served the missionary purpose of persuading nonbelievers of Aum’s truth (Monthly Truth, no. 15: 29). Thus, science served as legitimation for Aum’s truth, and it was used as proselytization tool. Murai, head of Aum’s so-called “Science and Technology Ministry” which later was blamed for producing stimulant drugs and poison gas, was not only attracted by the miraculous world of religion but also had a strong inclination toward science fiction,24 the miraculous world of sciences. He once expressed his desire to build a “time machine” and an “almightily creative machine.”25 At this critical borderline between science and science fiction, Asahara once remarked, “science fiction becomes science fact” (1995d: 266).

Astrology and Prophecy As mentioned, Asahara initially studied and practiced Chinese divination and astrology. He was first of all concerned with his own fate, but he also used his skills for others. Already in the early phase of Aum Shinrikyo, Asahara had



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asked Murai Hideo and another member acquainted with astrology to develop a computer program for fast calculations of star constellations in order to secure 100% correct predictions (Asahara 1991a: 131 and personal information). In 1988 a horoscope series under the title “Grand Universe Astrology” (Dai-uchu sensei-gaku) began to appear in Mahayana (no. 8). Later, the series was taken up again in the magazines Enjoy Happiness (no. 1, 1992) and Vajrayana Sacca (no. 1, 1994). Asahara’s (1991a: 120) concern with his own fate and that of his followers eventually extended to that of humankind. His interest in astrology and his claim to possess supernatural abilities led him to announce prophecies of his own. In his early book Chonoryoku himitsu no kaihatsu-ho (1st ed. 1986), he claims that in 1986 he had predicted events, such as the eruption of Vesuvius, the crash of a Japanese airplane, and the earthquake in Mexico, each two to four weeks in advance.26 Such ability, he explains, resulted from meditation practice during which he went on so-called “astral trips.” Trips in the synchronous astral world would enable him to see future events of the phenomenal world (Asahara 1991b: 275). Asahara continued with his predictions throughout the following years. The last in the series was the Kobe earthquake of January 1995 (Asahara 1995c: 80–81). In his book Supreme Initiation, Asahara predicted in 1987 a nuclear war if certain conditions were not met: This is my prediction. Japan will gradually suffer from economic difficulty after economic friction with the United States and European Countries. It will be triggered off in 1990. However, if AUM has at least one or two branches in each country of the world by 1993, the prophecy I will make from now will not come true. Conversely, if true Bodhisattvas . . . do not gather and AUM does not have two branches or more in each country by 1993, what do you think will happen? Japan will rearm herself in 1993. Then a nuclear war is sure to break out from 1999 to 2003. I Asahara have mentioned the outbreak of a nuclear war for the first time. (1988: 87–88) Asahara proceeds by arguing: If a country has many believers in the teachings of the truth, it won’t have any internal conflicts, and will avoid waging a war against foreign countries. As such countries increase, the earth will be more peaceful and secure. . . . If [Aum] spreads all over the world, we can avoid World War 3 certainly. (1988: 92)

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Asahara viewed the situation as very serious, but there was still hope for survival if the conditions he set were met. In 1988, he had begun to study the Apocalypse of John and subsequently published the book Metsubo no hi (Doomsday) in 1989. According to his interpretation, practitioners with supernatural powers will be able to survive doomsday. They will be led by a king from Japan, but this will not be the Japanese Emperor.27 Also in 1989, Asahara (1992f: 153–154) had begun to study Nostradamus’s Les Centuries. The first articles on “Nostradamus’s Great Prophecies” appeared in the March and April issues of Mahayana (nos. 20 and 21), in which they were declared to be the “last truth.” They are explained as a warning that left only little time to escape from the impending disaster. In April 1989 publication of the manga Metsubo no hi with the subtitle Harmagedon [sic] followed, an illustration of the “Great Prophecies of the [Book of ] Apocalypse.” Because the text of Nostradamus’s Les Centuries varies according to the edition, Asahara even traveled with some disciples to France in search of the authentic text. The interest of the Aum group focused particularly on the authenticity of the prophecy Ch. X, no.72, which reads as follows: In the year 1999 and seven months, From the skies shall come an alarmingly powerful king, To raise again the Great King of the Jacquerie, Before and after, Mars shall reign at will. (Roberts [1982] 1994: 336) This verse was frequently interpreted as a prediction of a major catastrophe such as Armageddon in 1999. However, Asahara (1991a: 132, 108) maintained that he did not think that in 1999 humankind would be destroyed, but that there would be a situation close to such a catastrophe, in the midst of which a “new humankind” would be born; in other words, such a cataclysm would give birth to the “supra-humankind” that would create a peaceful world. Asahara (1991a: 41, 44, 46) claims to share with Nostradamus the same mastery of astrology, meditation (thereby entering a synchronous dimension), and “mystical powers” enabling him to see the future. Therefore, it is only Asahara who can to decipher Nostradamus’s revelations correctly.28 The above quoted verse was the focus of the “Nostradamus boom” in Japan (cf. Asahara 1991a: 103–104), which was triggered by the science-fiction writer Goto Ben, who published a series of books on the “Great Prophecies of Nostradamus” since 1973.29 The subtitles promise a catastrophic event for humankind in 1999. The subtitle of the first volume also mentions the “month seven” or “seven months” of 1999 of the verse of Les Centuries quoted above. Before Aum, Agon-shu and Kofuku no kagaku had already taken up this



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subject.30 They also focused on the Nostradamus prediction quoted above (cf. Kisala 1998: 143–157). The popularity of Nostradamus seems to be connected with the sense of crisis currently prevalent among Japanese.31 Asahara first employed doomsday predictions in order to warn humankind and to encourage people to take refuge in Aum. His visions, however, became more pessimistic when he felt repeatedly rejected by society. In 1990 Asahara stated: We are heading for Armageddon. It becomes very clear if you analyze the situation in the Middle East. Also the coming of Haley’s comet, the frequent appearances of UFO’S, the Soviet Union’s democratization . . . and so forth . . . all these incidents . . . are telling us that the world is getting ready for Armageddon. . . . This is why I always say we must think of the way to protect ourselves. . . . I have decided to build a facility for 1,500 to 2,000 people. . . . Nuclear war, bacteriological weapons, chemical weapons, no matter what kind of weapons should attack us, we must protect ourselves and preserve a place for our practice. (Asahara 1992b: 103–104) Hope for renewal of the world by converting humankind was given up. Disappointment with society spread, as well as hopelessness (cf. Shinri, no. 26: 4–16). The only escape from the impending catastrophe was to practice more rigorously and to build shelters for protection (Asahara 1992b: 105–106). This “eschatological” mood is also expressed in the architecture of Aum facilities. In contrast to the luxurious, impressing buildings of other new Japanese religions, those of Aum looked like factories and were purely functional. Here, believers lived, worked, meditated, and protected themselves by filter devices against possible gas attacks. At this point, Aum seems to have returned to the introverted practice from which the movement once had started. Mahayana Buddhism and the opening up toward society seemed to have been an unnecessary detour (cf. Asahara 1992b: 105). The most comprehensive Aum publication on the impending disaster and Asahara’s predictions is Hiizure kuni, wazawai chikashi, published a few days before the Tokyo gas attack in March 1995. On the back cover of the English version Disaster Approaches the Land of the Rising Sun, the reader is exhorted to “Survive Armageddon!”—the Third World War. The introduction continues: This is the prophesied final war which shall surpass all others technologically and in sheer scale of destruction. The book presents a detailed picture of future political and economic events, natural disasters, as

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well as the goals of the worldwide Freemasons conspiracy. With his divine insight, Master Asahara deciphers astrological charts and interprets the prophecies of Nostradamus, the Bible, and others. It includes an explanation of state-of-the-art weapons, some secretly developed by the superpowers that are more dangerous than nuclear weapons. Learn protective measures against them. . . . Master Asahara and his followers are preparing for Armageddon by combining the wisdom of spiritual practice with science, and pave the way for a new era of peace. The book starts in the preface with “The War Has Already Begun,” suggesting that the Kobe Earthquake in January 1995 was caused by an “earthquake weapon” (Asahara 1995d: p. vii, cf. 60). It refers to Nicola Tesla’s attempt to create artificial earthquakes.32 It also quotes a Yomiuri Shinbun article of May 4, 1991, according to which “Russian earthquake weapons” were “in the last stage of development” (Asahara 1995d: pp. vii–x, cf. 58–62). Thus, an attack on Japan will become the beginning of the Third World War; however, the real attacker will be the United States.33 In waging such a war, the United States will try to overcome its economic crisis. Nuclear weapons will be employed or the spread of a false religion (Asahara 1995d: 73–81). However, Japan will not be defeated. According to Asahara, “Nostradamus predicted that Japan will be the leader in the coming century” (1995d: 293; cf. 290). According to this scenario, however, only those Japanese people will survive, who are Aum members because of its unique combination of religion, science, and technology. Besides conventional protective measures such as building shelters, meditation techniques will help to prevent panic and to reduce consumption of oxygen in narrow shelters (Asahara 1995d: 124, 131). Also, protection against electronic warfare, biological and chemical weapons, and laser and microwave weapons are discussed (Asahara 1995d: 157–169, cf. 108ff.). “The last resort to surviving an attack is to do the correct practice” (Asahara 1995d: 182). The core of the Final War is, according to Asahara, not political or military, but religious. It is a religious war between East and West, between Buddhism and Christianity. As Asahara says: Religious wars are breaking out throughout the world. Christianity is controlling the world, and there is no doubt that it is persecuting other religions. . . . Everything happens according to the law of the karma. Those who persecute must be persecuted, and those who oppress must be oppressed. I am sure that the final religious war on earth will be a confrontation between Buddhism and Christianity. (1995d: 268)



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Asahara further clarifies the nature of such a confrontation: The expression conflict between Christianity and Buddhism is a metaphor. Actually, the conflict is between Buddhism and the people ruled by materialistic desires, believing in Christianity. This is not Buddhism in the ordinary sense, but a group with the view that the human realm is maya, an illusion. . . . The conflict will take place between this group and the group possessed by materialistic desires. (1995d: 306) The predominant tone of this Aum publication is not directed toward actively initiating Armageddon, but toward one’s own survival and self-protection. Asahara (1995d: 187, 20) foresees that Eastern wisdom will not only help people to survive Armageddon but also that it will become the basis of the new civilization. Japan will become a “country that makes true religion its ideology” and “will rule the world” (Asahara 1995d: 82). Thus, Asahara (1995d: 100, 291) sees the ultimate victory of Buddhism to come, and consequently Christianity will vanish, and the “Christian era will end.” The “entire world will change into Buddhist countries,” and at this time “Aum Shinrikyo will be the center of the world” (Asahara 1995d: 131, 297). Here we encounter a Buddhist kind of fundamentalism that is a reaction against Westernization and globalization. Other new religions in Japan express similar resentments and ideas (cf. Agon-shu 1989: 7–8; Davis 1992: 47–50). Asahara perceived himself as the savior of the world at the end of the second millennium. How will the situation be after Armageddon? According to Asahara, “after the Third World War, I imagine that this world will be filled with love. Every person will overcome his or her own suffering and work for the good of others” (1995d: 133). Concerning a definite date of the final war, Asahara’s predictions remained vague. Expectation of Armageddon served to strengthen the Aum members’ consciousness of being the chosen people to survive (cf. Asahara 1991a: 123). This again contributed to deepen the gap between the group and the surrounding society.

Aum’s Teachings: A Common Denominator? The diversity of Aum’s teachings and practice, ranging from ancient Buddhist texts to science fiction, or from Mahayana Buddhism to Nostradamus, has led scholars of religious studies to use terms like “syncretic” or “eclectic” in order to characterize Aum. However, this kind of labeling tends to be judgmental. Moreover, such judgments do not contribute much to a better understanding of Aum’s characteristics. Most, if not all, religions established by a founder are

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syncretic or eclectic. Instead it might be more fruitful to ask whether there might be a common thread which binds all diverse, heterogeneous elements together. Reviewing Asahara’s and Aum Shinrikyo’s development between 1986 and 1995, the following major elements are encountered: (1) Astrology; (2) Daoism; (3) Hinduism, especially yoga; (4) Buddhism in the forms of “Hinayana,” Mahayana, and tantric or esoteric Buddhism; (5) Judeo-Christian apocalyptical traditions; and (6) science, science fiction, and technology. Among these diverse elements, in my view, the common denominator is Aum’s peculiar combination of “knowledge” and “power.” Aum leaders used “knowledge” to gain power, and exercised and increased “power” through constantly acquiring new knowledge. Application of this hypothesis on the various elements of Aum bears the following results. First, astrology promises knowledge of personal and global fate, gives advice to act accordingly, and as such becomes a means to master fate. Second, Daoism requires much knowledge in its search for immortality and, once acquired, provides powers over aging and death. Third, yoga teaching and practice provide the mastery of body and mind but also of time and space. It also enables to travel in the dimension of the “astral world,” where one can gain knowledge about future events. Fourth, in Buddhism, the idea of karma requires certain understanding of the past in order to master one’s present and future religious fate. Its main focus is to gain practical insight into liberation from the cycle of birth and death, in other words to master one’s suffering and transitoriness. While yoga and “Hinayana” provide knowledge and power for one’s own individual liberation, Mahayana transmits wisdom and power for the liberation of humankind. Tantric Buddhism especially is known for its transmission of esoteric knowledge and powers. Asahara always stressed the acquisition of supernatural powers (Skt. siddhi, J. chonoryoku) in yoga or the divine powers (shintsuriki) in Daoism and Buddhism. Asahara (1991b: 3) once pointed out that he had extracted especially the supernatural powers from Daoism, Buddhism, Esoteric Buddhism, and yoga, and then had combined them. Fifth, proper understanding of the Apocalypse of St. John and Nostradamus’s prophecies revealed future catastrophic events of worldwide scope. This knowledge, again, was instrumental in finding ways to survive impending disasters. The one, who is able to gain knowledge about past, present, and future, has powers over his followers and others as well. Finally, also science and technology represent the modern skills first to acquire knowledge and then to put it powerfully into reality. In other words, the intention is to use knowledge and power to rule the world.



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Seen from inside the system, Asahara’s religion is in a certain sense coherent. Religious practices, prophecies, science, and technology all “prove” the truth of his theories and practices. Together they provided the credibility, authority, and “truth” for the Aum followers. Aum’s combination of these different elements centered around the core of super-knowledge and super-power. Further, by hiding this core and calling it “secret power” and “secret knowledge” or “wisdom,” Asahara’s authority remained unchallenged within the group. In a sense, Aum Shinrikyo is a very modern religion. Through its attempt to combine religion and science, it tried to become a “scientific religion.” In the end, however, the whole system boiled down to primitive human instincts. Since knowledge was used only as a tool for gaining more power, Asahara’s religion came to be centered on power. Aum is, as Asahara (1991a: 83) once stated, a “supernatural-power religion” (chonoryoku shukyo). According to his writings, this may be called “Asahara’s Aum Shinrikyo.” This characteristic, however, has to be distinguished from the individual believer’s perception. Most followers were more concerned with gaining peace of mind or attaining liberation from suffering (gedatsu) and satori.34 Most of the Aum members with whom I spoke stressed Buddhist teaching and practice, especially liberation from suffering and from the cycle of birth and death. When talking about the acclaimed levitation, the initial source for Asahara’s claim of supernatural powers, some only smiled and said this could be explained naturally.

Organizational Developments and Criminal Activities When writing of Aum Shinrikyo, mass media and academic studies normally begin with its crimes.35 By using such a kind of description, right from its beginning the group gets characterized as heavily corrupt and evil, leaving no room for more nuanced perceptions of the subject. Thus, Aum is portrayed as a violent group which “from its earliest days” and with “intrinsic” necessity (cf. Reader 2000: 161, 42) led to crime and terror. It is clear, however, that such an anachronistic or ahistorical approach does not do justice to the subject.36 In contrast to such approaches, the present study first portrays Aum’s developments and its religious system, and then provides an outline of the criminal side. Hereby, I suggest distinguishing between three different layers, namely Aum’s religious system (teaching and practice), its social organization, and its criminal activities. In the first section I introduced Aum as a religious entity, and in this section I am going to treat its social organization as well as its criminal activities. I argue that it was its social conflicts with the rest

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of society that led to radicalization and violence of Aum. It was not Aum’s teaching per se or other internal factors alone that led to this development, as police, prosecution, and some scholars suggest (cf. below). The following chronological account treats the crimes in the context of Aum’s organizational development. Criminal developments within Aum Shinriko began in February 1989 when senior members strangled Taguchi Shuji to death. Taguchi wanted to leave the group because he had witnessed the death of another member caused by rigorous religious training in September 1988 ( JT, April 25, 1996). The leaders feared he would leak this information to press or police and thereby create obstacles for the official recognition of Aum as a religious corporation (shukyo hojin). Aum had already attempted to apply for this legal status at the Tokyo metropolitan government in 1988; however, because (according to court hearings) authorities already knew about the troubles between celibate Aum believers and their parents, they had delayed procedures. Before accepting the formal application in March 1989, they visited Aum facilities in January and February 1989 in order to clarify the problems.37 Aum received formal recognition only in August 1989. Hence, the first murder in Aum served to remove a possible obstacle for its legal recognition as religious organization. Soon after Aum’s official recognition, the weekly magazine Sunday Mainichi published the first critical media reports on Aum in a series between October 15 and 29, 1989, entitled Oumu shinrikyo no kyoki (The madness of Aum Shinrikyo). The articles were based on testimonies by relatives of Aum members and targeted strange religious practices, such as drinking Asahara’s blood, but also practices related to Aum’s introduction of celibacy (shukke), the donation of large amounts of money to Aum, or the taking of their children into the new community. These articles put Aum under the spotlight of public scrutiny for the first time. Henceforth, criticism focused mainly on Aum’s system of leaving house and family (shukke) in order to dedicate one’s whole life and possessions to religion. Meanwhile, Aum members perceived these critical reports as “Aum bashing” and “persecution” (Asahara 1992f: 153). The first murder target outside Aum became lawyer Sakamoto Tsutsumi, his wife, and their baby, in late 1989.38 Sakamoto had been representing families of Aum members in order to sue the group at court. He also had given an interview to Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), which was critical of Aum. TBS then gave into demands of senior Aum members to provide a preview of the interview. After talks failed to convince the lawyer to stop his criticism, in November 1989 a group of senior Aum members killed the family in their apartment and buried them in remote places in the mountains. The Kanagawa



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Prefectural Police in charge of this case did almost nothing to investigate the case because the lawyer’s office had represented a member of the Communist Party at court, whose telephone had been illegally wiretapped by the same police some years before. Later, the head of the National Police Agency, Kunimatsu Takaji, admitted that if the police had acted promptly, “the nerve gas attacks in Matsumoto and on the [Tokyo] subway would not have taken place” ( JT, September 9, 1995). Meanwhile, TBS hid its involvement in this tragic case for over six years until it gave in to public pressure in 1995 and admitted that it had struck a deal with Aum at that time. In exchange for not airing the Sakamoto interview, TBS received a special interview with Asahara. If we analyze the first murders inside and outside the group, we have to conclude that they served the single purpose of protecting Aum as a religious organization from public interference. In winter 1989/90, Asahara and senior followers participated in the elections for the Lower House without any success. This failure caused one of the decisive turning points in the development of Aum. Thereafter, Asahara’s teaching turned toward Tantra Vajrayana and doomsday prophecies, and the gap between Aum and the rest of society deepened further. In May 1990 Aum bought land in Namino-son in Kyushu to set up housing and workshops in order to create the “Lotus Village.” Because of the provocative behavior of the mostly young followers, conflicts with the people of the village arose. Subsequently, village authorities did not permit Aum members to register as local citizens because they feared a “foreign takeover” of the village.39 While this reaction is understandable, the refusal of registration was illegal. In October 1990 the police searched twelve Aum facilities on grounds of alleged infractions of building regulations in Namino-son and arrested several leading members.40 Aum representatives perceived this as the beginning of “illegal suppression by the state” and as “persecution.”41 The investigation led to a court trial. In the end, the conflict was solved by Aum having to leave the place and the village paying compensation.42 By 1991 Aum Shinrikyo had established eighteen centers in Japan, and one center each in New York and Bonn (Asahara 1991c: 126). From this time on, Aum also expanded its international activities. In 1991 Asahara traveled widely in the company of many followers. He visited holy places in India and was said to have been invited as a guest of state in Laos; he reportedly was praised in Sri Lanka as “the only one who can save the world” and received a Buddhist relic from the prime minister.43 Also in 1991 the first important meeting took place between Aum representatives and Oleg Lobov, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, opening the way for its subsequent activities in Russia. In 1992 Aum began to broadcast its own radio program in

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Russia (Asahara 1992c: 121, 125) and to financially support the newly established Russia•Japan University which, however, never functioned as an institution for teaching and research (AEN, May 16, 1995). Also in 1992 Asahara traveled to Moscow, accompanied by 300 followers, and was received by government officials. In June 1992 the Russian Justice Ministry recognized Aum as official religious organization, thereby granting tax exemption and permission to proselytize. The first branch office in Moscow was opened in September (AEN, May 16, 1995). It is estimated that in subsequent years Aum gained ca. 30,000 followers in Russia.44 In 1993, Aum purchased a sheep farm in Australia, probably for providing a safe haven as well as for the purpose of digging uranium.45 In the same year, Aum founded business enterprises in Japan, such as Hasegawa Chemicals, which made it possible to acquire chemicals in large amounts. It also established the company Mahaposha (Mahaposya) for international trade and computer production. Computer parts were imported from Taiwan and assembled by the cheap labor of Aum members. The computers were sold cheaply in Aum’s computer stores in Tokyo and Osaka, and its profit contributed considerably to Aum’s income. In its New York branch, Aum was not able to gather many followers, but from here it purchased sophisticated computer hardware and software for its scientific activities (Nunn Report 1995: 75–86). These were Aum’s main organizational developments in and outside Japan, when in June 1994, a sudden poison gas attack occurred in Matsumoto (Nagano prefecture), injuring 147 people and killing 7 persons ( JT, April 25, 1996). Among the victims were judges involved in court proceedings concerning a building claimed by Aum. This attack shook the sense of public security in Japan. The man who first reported the incident was treated by the prefectural police as main suspect; his wife was badly injured by the gas and is still in a coma today. A year later, police and mass media had to apologize to him for wrongly accusing him of this crime. On January 17, 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake in the Osaka-Kobe area occurred, leaving over 5,000 persons dead, more than 26,000 injured, and over 250,000 homeless. Again, the citizens’ trust in public safety was tested and particularly their reliance on government and administration was disappointed (cf. Repp 1995b). It is in this context of a general mood of anxiety that on the morning of March 20, 1995, during rush hour, a gas attack46 was carried out on five lines of Tokyo Metropolitan Subway, all of them close to government offices and police headquarters in Kasumigaseki. The gas was released from sealed plastic bags that were opened with the sharpened tip of an umbrella. Approximately 4,000 people were injured, many of them



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seriously and with long-lasting effects; 12 persons died.47 One victim, pars pro totem, described his suffering as follows: I was in hospital for twelve days: vicious headaches the whole time. No pain-killer worked. I was in agony. The headaches would come in waves all day, receding then getting stronger. I also ran a high fever for two days; as high as 40° C. I had cramps in my legs and trouble breathing for the first three or four days. It was like there was something stuck in my throat. Excruciating. My eyes were so bad I’d look outside and see no light at all. Everything was a blur. (Murakami 2001: 60) Two days after the Tokyo gas attack, approximately 2,500 armed police, equipped with helmets, gas masks, and crowbars, searched the Aum facilities in Kamikuishiki (Yamanashi prefecture) and at twenty-four other locations. The event was broadcasted live and nationwide by camera men, who had been waiting for the police at the Aum facilities, since they had been informed by police well in advance. The search warrants were issued in connection with an abduction. On February 26, 1995, Aum members had abducted the notary public Kariya Kiyoshi because he had hidden his sister, an Aum follower, when Aum pressed her to donate real estate ( JT, April 23, 1995 and April 25, 1996). Kariya’s abduction became the official reason for the massive police search of the Aum facilities. Police later found that he had been killed in Aum facilities by an overdose of drugs. The investigation right from the beginning, however, concentrated on the stockpiles of chemicals, an alleged poison gas laboratory, an alleged weapons factory, and other suspicious objects. The investigations lasted for months. During the subsequent period, further incidents occurred which the media quickly connected with Aum Shinrikyo, rightly or wrongly.48 On March 30, for example, Kunimatsu Takaji, the head of the National Police Agency, was shot several times when he left his apartment, however, he survived. First an Aum member, who was a police officer, was suspected (DY, October 29, 1996 and October 31, 1996), however, this story turned out to be a hoax. Even today the Japanese police still have not brought to light the truth about the attempt on the life of Japan’s top police chief. Apparently, forces more powerful than Aum or the national police were at work here. Another cryptic example of these turbulent times concerns the murder of Murai Hideo, head of Aum’s science and technology department, on April 23. A young Korean hired by Yakuza (Japanese gangsters) stabbed Murai to death as he was about to enter the Aum center in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo. As it happened, the television network TBS

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(Tokyo Broadcasting System) had moved its camera team at the right time to the right place and filmed the murder live, the camera positioned right behind the murderer. Before the actual murder occurred, TBS had already filmed the future perpetrator waiting for the victim, also zooming in on his suitcase (containing his knife) with one lock opened. After the stabbing, the murderer waited for the police to detain him while his two accomplices escaped unnoticed. While the Korean was sentenced, the Yakuza boss, who had given the orders and paid for it, went free. This adds another strange story to the incidents involving Aum Shinrikyo, the media, and police. The arrest of Asahara himself occurred rather late, on May 16. Again, a veritable host of journalists and camera teams descended upon Kamikuishiki.49 After several hours of search, police found Asahara hiding in a lowceiling secret chamber in Satian no. 6 in Kamikuishiki, the building where he used to live with his family, and arrested him. The event became a major media spectacle. Later police revealed that Aum members previously had also attacked a number of individual opponents with VX poison gas between May 1994 and January 1995 ( JT, April 25, 1996). Further, the police found that between October 1988 and February 1995 thirty-three Aum members perished through accident, suicide, or murder. Besides these, twenty-one followers were still missing ( JT, March 5, 1995). The government treated Aum as an organization in the following legal ways.50 In October 1995, the Tokyo District Court revoked the religious corporation (shukyo hojin) status of Aum Shinrikyo because of its production of nerve gas (AEN/JT/MDN, October 31, 1995). In December 1995, Koan (Public Security Investigation Agency), Justice Ministry, and the government announced the plan to apply the Antisubversive Activities Law (haboho) on Aum, the first time this law (originally designed for the communist peril) would ever be used. However, in January 31, 1997, the Public Security Examination Commission, which has to approve such a decision, refused to grant approval to outlaw Aum under the habo-ho, because it considered the group after the arrest of most of its leaders not as dangerous anymore ( JT, February 1, 1997). In another attempt, the government drafted the Law for Regulating Groups (dantai kisei-ho)51 in October 1999, specially designed for Aum, as well as another one aimed at confiscating its assets for redress of its victims. The first law allows the Koan to regularly supervise and restrict Aum activities for three years, and it requires Aum to submit to the Koan detailed reports of names and addresses of members, locations of facilities, amount of assets, and its activities.52 Lower and Upper House adopted the two bills in November and December 1999 ( JT, November 18,



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1999 and December 3, 1999), and finally the Public Security Examination Commission permitted the application of the new law on Aum on January 31, 2000. In contrast to its previous decision, this time the Committee recognized the Koan’s claim, the gas attacks in Matsumoto and Tokyo had political reasons to create a “nation under the sovereignty” of Asahara and that the “cult followers still constituted a threat and could commit another indiscriminate mass murder in the future” ( JT, February 2, 2000). In an attempt to survive legal measurements, in January 2000, Aum changed its name to Aleph (J. Arephu) ( JT, January 19, 2000). As regards to court rulings for individual Aum members, four of the five followers who dispersed the poison gas in the subways received the death penalty, and their drivers and the fifth, Dr. Hayashi Ikuo, were sentenced to life in prison. Another five members received the death penalty for other murders or production of poison gas. Most of the sentences are under appeal ( JT, April 25, 2003). In 2004, the court handed down the death penalty for Asahara. Up to now (2014) he has not been executed yet. In the meantime, towns and villages organized anti-Aum movements in order to get Aum members out of their residences.53 Furthermore, two of Asahara’s children were refused to be accepted in public school ( JT, June 29, 1999; cf. DY, April 10, 1999) Also in several cases Aum members and children of Asahara were not permitted residency in towns ( JT, December 22, 1998 and June 29, 1999). The criminal and terrorist attacks became an excuse for violating basic human rights.

Literature on the Aum Incident The Japanese literature on the Aum incident is so immense that it requires a separate treatment. Articles and books in Western languages are numerous as well, but only the most important ones shall be introduced here briefly. The first scholarly articles appearing in 199554 were those of Hardacre (1995), Shimazono (1995), Young (1995), and Repp (1995a), the first scholarly book publication was Reader’s (1996). In order to introduce the literature on Aum, I have chosen a systematic approach. Being aware of the fact that categorizations are generalizations, the following characterizations should be understood rather as descriptions of major tendencies. First, I treat studies by religious scholars, then studies from other backgrounds, such as those of journalists. The religious studies may be divided roughly into: (1) those which tend to portray and explain the Aum incident mainly through Aum internal factors (such as its teachings); (2) those which tend to treat it more from external factors (or its context, such as the contemporary Japanese society); and (3)

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those which shift the focus from the Aum incident itself to its consequences, its impact, and the responses it earned afterward. To begin with the first group of religious studies, Shimazono Susumu’s thorough article of 1995 has to be mentioned first, not only because of its early and repeated publication but also because of its influence on subsequent studies. Shimazono states in the beginning “that an understanding of [Asahara’s] universe of belief is vital if one is to understand the sect’s subsequent actions” (382). In the first English book publication (1996) on Aum, Ian Reader does not pay much attention to this issue, however, in his second, larger book on this subject (2000: 4),55 he acknowledges Shimazono’s lead by stating “that the seeds of Aum’s violence were more deeply rooted in its basic doctrines, in the movement’s image of itself, in its self-proclaimed mission and the personality of its founder.” As Shimazono already traced the subsequent phases of Aum’s teachings from Yoga to Tantra Vajrayana, Reader pays attention especially to the latter. He analyses parts of a textbook on Vajrayana, consisting of sermons Asahara held between August 1988 and April 1994, which was restricted for advanced Aum followers. Reader relates the developments of this teaching to parallel developments of Aum toward violence and terror, thereby covering the crucial later period of Aum’s developments. Reader’s second study, though, suffers from an artificial alternative he states in the beginning: “My concern is not so much what happened as why it did” (2000: 2). Consequently, interpretations, assumptions, and speculations overshadow the factual side of his study.56 In stressing that the Vajrayana teachings were the main cause for Aum’s violent developments, particularly the legitimation of murder by the term poa, Reader and Shimazono are arguing in the same line as the Public Prosecutor in the Asahara court case.57 Still, both authors admit to a limited degree also the involvement of social factors in the developments leading to the Aum incident, such as the attacks by mass media and anti-Aum movements on Aum. Shimazono (1995: 411–411) concludes his study by broadly blaming the influence of too much “freedom” in Japan’s postwar society. What he means, though, is not freedom but libertinism. Both authors, however, put the emphasis clearly on internal factors. Those authors, who focus on Asahara’s teaching and personality as main factors for the Aum incident, tend to neglect two other internal factors, probably because they are activated only through interlinkage with external factors. These two factors are celibacy and the young age of most leading Aum members. First, Aum’s system of shukke (celibacy) clearly challenged established society as well as Buddhism in Japan which has neglected this practice since the Meiji Restoration. From early on, Richard Young pointed out this factor of celibacy when he wrote:



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Wherever the world and its ways have been rejected and a separate community of renunciates has been established, Buddhism—or whatever goes by that name—has been denounced as economically unproductive and the Buddhist monks who have been sexually unreproductive have been traduced as unfilial. Productivity and reproductivity are the essential ingredients of the pervasive musubi (growth) mentality one finds in Japan. Aum was obviously a threat to both. (1995: 239– 240) A second, equally neglected factor for the growing conflict between Aum and the rest of society was the simple fact that most of its leadership consisted of young people, who were acting according to their specific mindsets. This factor again has two aspects: one is the behavioral pattern of this age group, the other is the worldview (or, worldviews) characteristic to young people in contemporary Japan. As for the first aspect, an important factor leading to the Aum incident is that most Aum members were young people, who lacked the experience of what Japanese call shakai-jin (person of society), that is, a person who grew out of the “easy life” of young people and learned to behave according to the rules of established society.58 The resulting inability to solve conflicts in a mature way contributed significantly to the emergence and aggravation of conflicts with families, neighbors, and civil authorities.59 This problem can also be described as the inability to communicate understandably and to take the other’s concerns into account for one’s own actions (Repp 2003: 60–62). The other aspect of this factor is the worldview of young people in contemporary Japan. One approach interpreted the Aum incident from the context of Japanese contemporary pop or youth culture. Besides attempting to understand the Aum incident from the perspective of scholars (i.e., what they think about Aum), an approach from that of peers of Aum members, the so-called Aum generation, sheds new light on the case (cf. Repp 1997c). In respect to manga (comics) and popular literature, Miyai Rika (1997) and Maeda Daisuke (1997) demonstrated that there exists a certain rationale underlying the behavior and acts of Aum members, and that they are not as unintelligible as generally portrayed. Stimulated by their approach, I have further pursued studies of manga as expressions of, and factors for, the patterns of thinking and acting of young people in contemporary Japan (Repp 1997b and revised and abridged, 2000). Viewed in such context, the Aum incident loses some of its seemingly strange and enigmatic aspects, instead, it begins to make some sense, at least to a certain degree.60

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Besides the studies emphasizing internal factors are those which tend to focus on external factors. My own studies (Repp 1995a, 1996, 1997a and b, 2001a and b, 2003) belong to this category. While I do not deny the significance of internal factors of the Aum incident, I take into account also external ones such as contemporary Japanese society, media, police, other religions, and pop culture. For this reason I attempt to apply more complex, interacting models, such as treating Aum as a challenge and response to contemporary society and religions. Viewed in the broader context of Japanese society and religions, where violence and murder occur frequently, the Aum incident does not appear to be so unique anymore, as it is generally portrayed, but represents rather the visible top of an iceberg. It was only the two poison gas attacks that transformed the Aum incident from a criminal affair to a terrorist threat. Among the external social factors leading to the Aum incident, the shortcomings of the media were treated by Hardacre (1995), Repp (1997a), and Gardner (1999, 2002a). Hardacre focuses on the Japanese mass media’s sensationalistic and one-sided reporting of the Aum incident, their overreliance on police sources (thereby becoming a mouthpiece of the police), lack of investigative journalism, and violating the principle that the “accused are innocent until proven guilty.” Two significant (though much neglected) attempts to counter the one-sided and sensationalistic mass media reporting on Aum by film director Mori Tatsuya in his films A and A2 are portrayed by Richard Gardner (1999 and 2002a).61 In contrast to ordinary media which view Aum from outside, Mori turns the camera from inside Aum to the outside, showing the human side of its spokesman and the intimidation by camera crews of mainline media as well as the lawbreaking tactics and mean behavior of Koan officers trying to arrest Aum members by illegal means. Another grave problem concerns the TBS scandal (cf. Repp 1997a: 68–77), and TBS’s involvement in the murder of Murai (see above). An analysis of these cases suggests that media conspired in, and contributed to, the Aum incident. Another exterior social factor contributing to the Aum incident is the negligence by police and other civil authorities, especially in the cases of the murder of the Sakamoto family and the gas attack in Matsumoto. Analyses of these failures were conducted by Repp (1997a: 77–79) and Hughes (2001). An innovative study of the Aum incident is Gardner’s (2002b) investigation of Japanese comic or satiric short poems (senryu) by ordinary people published in main newspapers between March and May 1995. In these poems, Japanese critically portray the Aum incident with irony and common sense in the context of history62 and contemporary Japanese society,63 such as police,64



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politics,65 and media.66 In contrast to the stereotypes produced by mass media, these poems, with engagement and detachment at the same time, provide an alternative approach to come to grips with the Aum incident,67 or, in a way, to make sense of its non-sense. It further illustrates the impact of the Aum incident on the daily life of ordinary citizens, including the most banal issues.68 One senryu summarizes the enigma and contradictions of the Aum incident: “Massive search of and reporting on Aum: it seems like I understand but I don’t” (Gardner 2002b: 46). Finally, in connection with the external factors leading to the Aum incident, Aum’s activities abroad also have to be mentioned. This became one important topic of Aum research. Aum in Russia was treated first by Yulia Mikhailova (1996), and then featured in Japanese Religions (vol. 26, no. 2) by Alexander Kabanoff (2001) and Galina Krylova (2001). Aum’s involvement in Australia is treated in my own study (2003) in which I paid special attention to the peculiar behavioral patterns of Aum members. Behavior in a foreign country becomes amplified and therefore more easily recognizable. Thus, some strange scenes in Australia, India, and Sri Lanka reveal the comic aspect of Aum. In this connection, it must be mentioned that Gardner’s (2002b) humoristic approach is the first of its kind. This is important because most studies treat the tragic side of the Aum incident. However, a humoristic approach may contribute also considerably to attempts in “making sense of all the non-sense.” Thus, cartoons,69 comics, and poems (senryu) pose significant material for research of the Aum incident. Apart from these studies treating the Aum incident itself are those which focus on the consequences and reactions to the Aum incident. Robert Kisala (1995) collected responses to the Aum incident by religious organizations in Japan. The incident had triggered massive public criticism of religion in general. Another consequence was the anti-cult movement, which became established in Japan through American influence. Watanabe Manabu (1997) documented this development. The legal implications of the Aum incident are featured in Japanese Religions (vol. 22, no. 1). Here, John LoBreglio (1997) translated the revised Law for Religious Corporations (shukyo hojin-ho) and compared it with the original law of 1951. Yuki Hideo (1997) analyzed the new law, and Kisala (1997; cf. 1995) presented the reactions of religious bodies to these revisions. In a different publication Mark Mullins (1997) also wrote about the political and legal responses to the Aum incident. Later legal developments, such as the Law for Regulating Groups (dantai kisei-ho) designed for Aum, as well as the court trials of leading Aum members, were treated in an article of mine (Repp 2001a).

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Kisala and Mullins (2001) published a collection of articles under the title Religion and Social Crisis: Understanding Japanese Society through the Aum Affair. Most of the contributions had been previously published, and, as the title suggests, rather than explaining the Aum incident itself, most articles focus on its impact on Japanese society. To conclude this section on religious studies of Aum, the roles of religious scholars themselves have to be mentioned. First, there is the problem of value judgments continually creeping into scholarly treatises. Michael Pye (1996: 261) was the first to take up this problem when stating, “Aum Shinrikyo looks set to become a textbook case for considering the relationship between a descriptive approach to the study of religion and the need for critical awareness and evaluation.” Second, it is also striking that Japan’s liberal religious scholars are not well represented in Japanese nor (subsequently) in foreign publications. Above, it was observed that mainstream Japanese and consequently foreign scholarship tends to focus either on internal factors or on (secondary) consequences. What is conspicuous for both approaches is the neglect of external factors behind the Aum incident. One reason is the silence of liberal scholarship in the Aum case. Its representatives, such as Ikeda Akira, for example, had voiced their critical opinion in previous conflicts between Aum and society. However, after March 1995 mass media forced them to be silent. Therefore, Japanese religious research on Aum was not balanced, and consequently it was not well represented in English publications. Hence, important issues such as human rights violations against Aum members are not mentioned in mainstream publications. James Lewis (1999) shed light on this problem by publishing essays of Japanese human rights advocates. This leads us from religious scholarship to “secular” treatises. The first attempt to draw a comprehensive picture of the Aum incident from a political perspective by focusing on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was the so-called Nunn Report, compiled for a hearing at the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on October 31 and November 1, 1995. This report covers the development of Aum and its beliefs, its membership and social structure, its financial operations, its production of chemical and biological weapons as well as of drugs, its crimes, and its activities overseas. Given the relatively short and early time of compilation, this report provides a comprehensive account of the Aum incident. In contrast, the account by D. W. Brackett (1996) portrays Aum in onesided manner. The same must be said of the book by the journalists David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall (1996), even though they provide a lot of detailed information on the Aum incident in Japan and worldwide. Because these books are written in sensationalistic style and do not provide sources,



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they are of not much use for scholarly purposes. They also violate the principle that the “accused are innocent until proven guilty” before courts hand down their verdicts.70 A similar one-sided approach applies to the psychiatrist Robert Lifton, who tries to come to grips with the Aum incident through his brainwashing theory. Relying heavily on other researchers, resource persons, and translators, he tries to make sense through his psychological approach. Considering the insufficiency of his brainwashing theory, at least in our context,71 his interpretative framework remains questionable. The lack of reference to sources and the continuous value judgments make it equally difficult to use for scholarly research. Finally, in contrast to these sensationalistic and one-sided books, the novelist Murakami Haruki (1997) published interviews with victims and survivors of the gas attack in Tokyo, which later (2000) appeared in English translation together with interviews with some Aum members. This sober-minded and sobering account of the victims’ side represents another innovative approach in dealing with the Aum incident. The victims’ voices have been much neglected by studies of the Aum incident. Moreover, Murakami’s courage to add statements by Aum members in the English edition, thereby juxtaposing the conflicting sides, creates a unique kind of book.

Factors Leading to the Aum Incident In conclusion, a summary of the findings above suggests lines for future research. In the development toward the Aum incident, Aum internal factors as well as external factors can be observed. The internal factors consist of Asahara’s personality and his charisma, his teachings, his followers, who formed the religious group Aum Shinrikyo, who supported him and depended on him and his teachings. The dynamic interaction between guru and disciples consisted in mutual dependency, on the one hand, and in mutual enforcement, on the other, though in different form and to different extents on both sides. Asahara’s teachings changed according to changing circumstances; they served as (secondary) legitimation (e.g., for murder), but then they also gave impulses for new actions. Thus, the Aum teachings have to be considered as a reactive, secondary factor, and as an active, primary factor. The social structure of the group consisted of a strict authoritarian hierarchy, with Asahara on the top, and the leading members directly below him. Information had to flow freely from the bottom to the top, but was strictly controlled in its flow from top to bottom. Horizontal communication of information among individual followers or working units was discouraged or

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prohibited. Individual members, especially those of the leading group like Murai or Hayakawa, contributed considerably to direction and functioning of the group. Last, but not least, the inability to communicate with society outside the group also contributed considerably to escalation of the conflict. Next, the external factors need to be considered. It is no accident that a group like Aum originated and flourished in Japan during the ­bubble-economy and post-bubble periods characterized by material wealth and spiritual emptiness, dissolution of families and loneliness, an education system that tolerated bullying (ijime), and did not foster independently thinking persons. Pop culture such as anime and manga formed the mindsets of young people in brutal as well as in idealized forms. Established religions were not able to attract young people and speak their language. Those all were direct or indirect factors which played a role in the forming of Aum itself. However, there were also a number of contributing factors for the Aum incident. Media attacked Aum from early on in an aggressive (bashing) and sensationalistic way which provoked reactions accordingly. The anti-Aum movements, certainly an indispensable group for a democratic society, involuntarily contributed to the escalation in certain ways. Religious groups in Japan were also, at least indirectly, involved through their demand for maintaining privileges without fulfilling social responsibilities accordingly. In this respect, Aum fits in perfectly with most of the other religious groups. Moreover, the reluctance of police to investigate Aum at the proper time was caused, it is said, by fear that other religious organizations would protest against an alleged interference in religious freedom. Also, the political orientation of the police prevented necessary actions, as the case of the Sakamoto family demonstrates. There were many other cases in which police did not take action in time, beginning with the first disappearance of members up the Matsumoto gas attack. Thus, incompetence of the police certainly was a contributing factor for Aum’s continuation and escalation of violence and murder. There were a number of other failures by civil authorities, such as the fire department not checking the Aum facilities in Kamikuishiki full of chemicals at the time, or the government’s lack of control of the large chemical trade in Japan, a point raised in the Nunn Report. Also the Yakuza cooperated by selling drugs imported or produced by Aum. Further, the Aum incident also could have not happened without various forms of international cooperation. Prominent political and religious figures recognized Asahara and Aum, thereby enhancing his authority and supporting his organization. Related issues are the political background and the economic side of the Aum incident, both nationally and internationally, which were neither fully exposed by police nor by the court.



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The Aum incident certainly occurred because Asahara and his followers were its major agents, however, it could occur only because of a broad variety of cooperating, contributing factors. The Aum incident is too complex to be grasped sufficiently by monocausal explanations. It is precisely the complex interaction of various factors which made it happen as it did. Future research on Aum, therefore, has to elaborate more precisely the specific interaction of internal and external factors that in combination led to the Aum incident.

Abbreviations AEN DY JT MDN

Asahi Evening News Daily Yomiuri Japan Times Mainichi Daily News

Notes The author would like to thank Dr. Monika Schrimpf (Tokyo) and Prof. John Dougil (Kyoto) for kindly helping to edit the manuscript and correcting the English. 1. According to Japanese custom, the first name follows the family name. 2. Mainichi Shinbun (May 16, 1995 evening ed.); cf. Asahi Shinbun (May 16, 1995 evening ed.); Kiriyama 1995b, 9–24; Asahara 1991b: 36–43. 3. Books on yoga by Sahoda Tsuruji exerted also some influence (Asahara 1991b: 44–45). Motoyama Hiroshi and Oki Masahiro contributed to the popularity of yoga in Japan in the 1980s. At this time, also Rajneesh’s movement was active in Japan. Asahara’s long hair and the Indian style clothes (kurta) of Aum monks and nuns illustrate the Indian influence. 4. Cf. Asahara 1991b: 22ff. Kiriyama’s (1973) book Nenriki was influential for the popularity of the word “supernatural power.” 5. Asahara understands hermits as “people who are spiritually evolved and have supernatural power” (Asahara 1992c: 79). The word aum (also written om) is used as mantra. According to Miller (1996: 37), “AUM is the primordial sound. . . . It expresses ultimate reality—in the cosmos, in the Lord of Yoga [i.e., Shiva], and in the individual.” 6. Asahara 1993a: p. ix, cf. 32; Asahara 1992f: 151; Vajrayana Sacca, no. 9:36. 7. Personal information by a member of this time. 8. JT, May 17, 1995. This custom is based on seimei handan (judging one’s fate according to one’s name); the account of strokes of the Chinese characters is supposed to reveal and determine one’s fate.

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9. Asahara 1992f: 154. Also Agon-shu claims to have received a Buddha/Buddhist relic from Sri Lanka’s President Jayewardene, which was venerated since 1986 (Reader 1988: 242). 10. Asahara 1991c: pref. According to him, a Buddha is the one who is able to solve problems such as “How should we live this life? Is there life after death? What is real happiness?” 11. Asahara 1993b: 105. Identifications with Buddha, Shiva, and later also with Christ (Asahara 1992f ) seem offensive to Westerners. In Asia, the idea of an avatar, a person embodying a deity, is more common. A recent example in Japan is Okawa Ryuho, the founder of Kofuku-no-kagaku (Science of Happiness), who claims to be a living Buddha and an incarnation of other deities. 12. For reports on the unconventional election campaign, see Mahayana, no. 27: 145–154 and Young 1995: 232–233. 13. In fall 1989, he reportedly declared “to become a spiritual dictator, a dictator of the world” ( JT, April 12, 1995). 14. Aum delivered its message in contemporary forms. Like other new religions in Japan, it employed modern media for propagation, such as animated films (anime) and comic books (manga) that appealed to young people (cf. Asahara 1992a). 15. These statements concerning the motives for joining Aum and its attraction are confirmed by a questionnaire conducted by Aum Shinrikyo among 600 members after the Aum incident in March 1995 (Vajrayana Sacca, no. 12: 21ff.). Its results are as follows: (1) reasons to join Aum: 273 respondents had read Aum books (46%); 171 were introduced by friends or relatives; (2) at the time of entering Aum, 341 persons had been in distress (58%); 245 did not feel to be afflicted (41%); (3) when entering Aum, 223 persons hoped to gain inner stability, greater spirituality, and reform of themselves (38%); 111 desired liberation or enlightenment; 91 expected to attain “supernatural power”; (4) concerning the reason for having faith as lay members, 194 persons agreed with the teaching (33%); for 144 experience due to religious practice was important, for 117 the reason was Asahara, and for 97, other disciples were significant. 16. MDN, March 17, 1995. This text is also printed on a sheet of paper which was put as “message” for his followers in an envelope and attached to the last page of the January 15, 1995, edition of Asahara’s Seishi o koeru. 17. According to the Yoga Sutra, this practice leads to samadhi (cf. Feuerstein 1989; Miller, 1996: 60). In Buddhism, samadhi denotes the mental state of a unity between subject and object experienced in intensive meditation practice, as well as meditation techniques leading to this state. 18. See for example Brackett 1996: 118. 19. Asahara gave lectures about Agama and other old sutras, which was published in Genshi butten kogi. In the preface (December 1989), Asahara (1990: 1, cf.



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10–12) states that “Hinayana” forms the “basis” of Aum, and that Mahayana, Vajrayana, and Tantric Buddhism derive from it. Contemporary academic studies do not use the term “Hinayana” (“small vehicle”) because of its negative connotation; instead, they use the self-denotation Theravada. Since Aum uses normally the term “Hinayana,” I write it here with quotation marks. 20. Asahara 1990: 1; 1992f: 153; 1995d: 14. 247; DY, May 17, 1995. Cf. Vajrayana Sacca, no. 9: 26. 105ff. 21. See, for example, Mahayana, no. 1: 103ff. and no. 35 frontispiece, Asahara 1995a: 72; also personal information from Aum members. 22. In the history of Buddhism, murder for religious reasons was frequently justified. During the Meiji period, for example, the prominent Zen priest Shaku Soen wrote: “Even though the Buddha teaches not to take another’s life, he also teaches that all sentient beings through the exercise of infinite compassion will be united and thereby obtain final and ultimate peace. As means toward the harmonizing of the incompatible, killing and war are necessary” (Ketelaar 1990: 171). 23. Cf. the articles on Murai in JT Weekly, April 29, 1995 and May 27, 1995. 24. See Thomas Caldwell, “Foundation and AUM–pire” in JT Weekly, May 27, 1995. Cf. Asahara 1995d: 20, 71, 136, 188, 280–281, Asahara 1995e: 262–263. 25. Aum Press 1995: 185–186. One of Murai’s favorite books was Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which treats the idea of overcoming the limits of space and time. 26. Asahara 1991b: 111–112. For other prophesies, see Asahara 1992f: 151, Mahayana, no. 4: 64–69, and no. 16: 10–16. 27. Asahara 1989a: 18. 179–180. A similar nationalistic vision can be found in Sukyo Mahikari, which expects its members to become the “top class” of a renewed civilization arising out of a global disaster (quoted in Davis 1992: 49). The new society will unite religion and government, it will become a “glorious theocratic society of the future.” And “Japan will finally be recognized as the spiritual center of the world, the Japanese as the dominant, chosen race” (quoted in Davis, 1992: 50). 28. Asahara 1991a: 55, 146. It may seem strange that a Buddhist group took over millennial or apocalyptic ideas from the Judeo-Christian tradition because similar ideas exist in Buddhism (“end of the dharma” (mappo), belief in the future Buddha Maitreya). For young Japanese, however, they sound old-fashioned. 29. See Goto 1994 (1st ed. 1973), 1984 (1st ed. 1979), 1991 (1st ed. 1981), and his numerous subsequent publications. 30. For Agon-shu, see Kiriyama Seiyu (1981, 1995a) and Irokawa (1990); for Kofuku no kagaku, see Okawa Ryuho (1988, 1991). 31. Yamashita (1998: 140) writes, “According to newspaper statistics, in the early 1990s, approximately 70–80% of business men reported that they wanted the end of the world to come.”

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32. For this topic, see JT Weekly, July 1, 1995. 33. In order to understand the drawing of such a scenario, one has to consider the resentment of Japanese people against America caused by the defeat during the Second World War and, more recently, by the effects of globalization. America represents the “West” in general (cf. Asahara 1995d: 36). This resentment is also expressed in form of anti-Christian sentiments, because it is the basis of Western civilization. 34. According to an internal questionnaire, the motive of acquiring supernatural powers ranked among Aum members only in third place (Vajrayana Sacca, no. 12: 23). 35. Cf. Brackett (1996), Kaplan and Marshall (1995), Reader (1996, 2000). 36. A related perception is that internal factors, such as Asahara’s personality and teachings, are considered to have been the main cause for the violent developments. 37. Mainichi Shinbun-sha Shakai-bu 1997: 101–104. According to MDN (March 28, 1997), Aum attempted already in 1987 to apply for this legal status. Because Reader’s (2000: 143, 146, 16 1) account provides inaccurate dates, he underestimates the pressure on Aum during this time and reaches wrong conclusions concerning the murder of Taguchi. 38. For early accounts of the family’s disappearance by an acquaintance of Sakamoto, see Egawa 1995a: 8–24 and 1995b: 25–113. 39. For a detailed account of the events in Namino-son by local media, see Kumamoto Nichinichi Shinbunsha (1995). 40. This was the first and only police search of Aum before March 1995. 41. Asahara 1992f: 153; cf. Vajrayana Sacca, no. 9: 36–39. Many authors dismiss this claim quickly as persecution complex, paranoia, etc. Reader (2000: 247, cf. 190 and 1996: 9), for example, declares that Aum’s talk of “persecution and conspiracy were perceptions rather than realities.” Even states of the mind have to be taken seriously as certain forms of (inner) realities which, in turn, may create subsequently outer realities—for which Aum is a striking example. 42. AEN, May 16, 1995; DY and JT, May 17, 1995. The incident of Namino-son set the basic pattern of subsequent interactions between Aum and society until today: In their attempts to acquire or rent property, Aum representatives frequently provide wrong data (names) for fear of refusal. Once Aum members move into a new facility, they often behave inconsiderately toward neighbors and community, thereby causing negative reactions. Thus, neighbors and/or communities organize movements to drive Aum members out of these facilities, and/or municipal authorities do not accept applications for residency. Both are illegal and violate human rights. 43. Asahara 1992f: 154; Shinri, no. 20: 28–35. Cf. Repp 2003: 63. 44. The Aum-Russia connection poses crucial questions such as: Who introduced Aum to the top politicians in the Kremlin? What was the real purpose and function of the Russia-Japan University? Hayakawa Kiyohide’s activities in Russia



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consisted of weapon trade and transfer of military technology. However, neither the Russian nor the Japanese authorities ever revealed the true nature of Aum’s involvement in Russia. For Aum in Russia, see the Nunn Report 1995: 58–68; Kabanoff 2001; Krylova 2001: 171–189. 45. For Aum’s involvement in Australia, see Repp 2003. 46. Most journalists and scholars follow the claim by police uncritically that the gas was sarin. However, this was never confirmed independently. This claim is problematic for the following reasons: sarin is more heavy than air (therefore it should not be released from the ground as it was), has not the odor which the victims reported, is not persistent (as it was), and causes different symptoms than those which the victims suffered. Cf. John Parker, “Tabun, it’s Tabun” ( JT Weekly, April 1, 1995), Yoichi Clark Shimatsu, “The Rashomon Riddle” ( JT Weekly, April 1, 1995), and “Zettai Tabun” ( JT Weekly, May 27, 1995). 47. See the description of events according to the state prosecutor’s indictment in Mainichi Shinbun Shakai-bu 1996: 53–75 and Kyodo Tsushin-sha Shakai-bu 1997: 239–253. For summarized English translations, see JT, April 25, 1996 and AEN, April 26, 1996. Cf. Hayashi 1998: 373–452. 48. The mass media sensationalistic reporting played an important role in creating the Aum hysteria. For a critical account of the mass media in this connection, see Asano 1996: 17–32 and 1997. 49. As usual, TBS topped the list with 660 newspeople deployed, while NTV had 400 engaged, and NHK 300 ( JT, May 18, 1995). 50. For this and the following paragraph, see Repp (2001a) for more details and analyses of the legal aspects of the Aum incident until ca. 2000. 51. The proper name of the law is Musabetsu dairyo satsujin koi o okonatto dantai no kisei ni kan-suru horitsu (Law for regulating groups which committed indiscriminate mass murder). It is also unofficially known as Oumu tokubetsu rippo (Special Law for Aum) and Oumu shinpo (New Law for Aum). 52. JT, October 30, 1999. Critical voices were also heard. The head of the National Public Safety Commission Hori Kosuke stated: “Compared with the Public Security Investigation Agency, police are far greater in their number and will serve to investigate more effectively.” Sakamoto’s mother in law commented: “Had police done their job properly, current laws could have prevented the tragedies. So I can’t approve of the bill.” ( JT, November 3, 1999). 53. JT, December 22, 1998, February 3, 1999, June 19, 1999, July 10, 1999; cf. n. 42. 54. To my knowledge, no scholarly studies on Aum in English appeared before the Aum incident 1995. 55. Title and subtitle of Reader’s second book, Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan—The Case of Aum Shinrikyo (2000), resembles to a remarkable degree those of my article “Religion und Gewalt im gegenwartigen Japan –– Der Fall Aum Shinrikyo” (1996).

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56. To present only one example: Reader (2000: 39) attempts to explain Asahara’s assumed name by the practice of Buddhist monks, who receive new names in ordination. However, Asahara himself never had a Buddhist name. Rather, he did so on the grounds of seimei handan (see n. 8). 57. Cf. Kyodo tsushin-sha Shakai-bu 1997: 233; Mainichi Shinbun-sha Shakai-bu 1996: 47–48. In other words, this is not very trustworthy considering the fact that Japanese police and public prosecution provided only very sparse and selective information on the Aum incident to the public. Shimazono is professor of Tokyo University, an institution whose main task is considered by a number of Japanese scholars not to pursue, first of all, academic research and education per se, but to provide the government with information and young civil servants. 58. An Aum member, who had the experience of a shakai-jin, called my attention to this point. In Repp (2003: 56–58, 62–64), I have elaborated this issue. 59. The statement “Compromise is crime” ( JT, June 29, 1999) by young people in an unrelated conflict with adults illustrates the basic attitude. 60. Daniel Metraux’s (1999) book on Aum and Japanese youth relies heavily on previous studies and lacks of original research, contains many mistakes in quotations (26, 70, 82) and in spelling of basic technical terms (75, 76), neglects references (79; cf. Repp 1997b: 22, 82), tends to conceal its reliance on previous research (24–26; cf. Repp 1995a: 233–235), and confuses quotations from primary sources with those from secondary texts (70, cf. Repp 1997b: 21). 61. Even though Gardner’s studies belong to the next category below, I include them here because they treat the media. 62. “Aum is imitating the Imperial Japanese Amy in waging bacteriological warfare.” “There was a time when all one hundred million Japanese were brainwashed” (Gardner 2002b: 40, 51). 63. “As a result of the love of money and material things, we have a society where Aum lives.” “Even without headgear, I am controlled by my wife.” “Home every day now as a householder, I am hated by my wife.” “I relax when they don’t praise my child for being an excellent student” (Gardner 2002b: 50, 55, 52, 54). 64. “I am worried about where the police are storing all the dangerous substances seized from Aum.” “Television talks too much, police is too silent” (revised according to original) “They could not find a reason to arrest my husband too” (Gardner 2002b: 49, 54, 50). 65. “A government that can handle neither natural disasters nor man-made disasters.” “Aum got enough religious donations to make even a politician jealous” (Gardner 2002b: 44, 53). 66. “Brainwashed by Aum specials with high ratings.” “All the television channels have been abducted to Kamikuishiki.” “Television has put headgear on us” (Gardner 2002b: 41, 45, 50).



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67. “With their headgear removed, they return to being the children of humans” (Gardner 2002b: 45). 68. “Ever since that day, I never get sleepy on the train.” “Noticing some newspapers on the overhead rack, I change my seat.” “With no one leaving the newspaper on the train anymore, my daily expenses have gone up” (Gardner 2002b: 47, 43, 45). 69. See also the cartoons by Yamai Norio (artist’s name) in Repp (1997a), which comment on the incident better than any learned treatise. 70. Useful publications by investigative journalists can be found in Japan Times Weekly in 1955. 71. See n. 66 and Repp 1995a: 242–243.

Bibliography aum pu bli cat i ons Asahara Shoko (Shoko Asahara). 1986. Seishi o koeru [Overcoming (the cycle of ) birth and death]. Tokyo: Oumu. ———. 1988. Supreme Initiation. An Empirical Spiritual Science for the Supreme Truth. Trans. by Jaya Prasad Nepal and Yoshitaka Aoki. Ed. by Fumihiro Joyu. New York: AUM USA Co. Ltd. ———. 1989a. Metsubo no hi [Day of destruction]. Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. ———. 1989b. Inishieshon [Initiation]. Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. ———. 1990. Genshi butten kogi 1 [Lectures on the Sutras of Original Buddhism, Vol. 1]. Tokyo: Aum Shuppan. ———. 1991a. Nosutoradamusu: Himitsu no dai-yogen–1999-nen no nazo [Nostradamus: The great prophecy of secrets—The enigma of the year 1999]. Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. ———.1991b. Cho-noryoku himitsu no kaihatsu-ho [Methods to develop the secrets of supernatural power] (1st ed. 1986). Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. ———. 1991c. The Teachings of the Truth. A Collection of Lectures. Trans. and edited by Aum Translation Committee. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1992a. (ed.) Supiritto jampu 1 (Spirit Jump 1). Aum Comics. Tokyo: Oumu Shuppan. ———. 1992b. The Teachings of the Truth, Vol. 2. Trans. and ed. by Aum Translation Committee. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1992c. The Teachings of the Truth, Vol. 3. The Preconditions of the True Religion. Trans. and ed. by Aum Translation Committee. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1992d. The Teachings of the Truth, Vol. 4. The Path to Absolute Happiness. Trans. and ed. by Aum Translation Committee. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co. Ltd.

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Asahara Shoko (Shoko Asahara). 1992e. Tathagata Abhidamma. The Ever-Winning Law of the True Victors. Book 2. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co., Ltd. ———. 1992f. Declaring Myself the Christ. Disclosing the True Meanings of Jesus Christ’s Gospel. Trans. and ed. by Aum Translation Committee. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1993a. Beyond Life and Death. Trans. and ed. by Aum Translation Committee. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1993b. The Teachings of the Truth, Vol. 5. The Law of the Karma. Trans. and ed. by Aum Translation Committee. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co. Ltd. ———. 1995a. Seishi o koeru [Overcoming (the cycle of ) birth and death]. (3rd revised ed.) Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. ———. 1995b. Jiko o koete kami to nare! [Overcoming one’s self, become kami!]. Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. ———. 1995c. Hiizuru kuni, wazawai chikashi [Land of the rising sun: The catastrophe is near]. Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. ———. 1995d. Disaster Approaches the Land of the Rising Sun. Fujinomiya: Aum Publishing Co., Ltd. ———. 1995e. Bokoku Nihon no kanashimi [The sorrow of Japan’s ruin]. Tokyo: Oumu shuppan. Aum Press, ed. ———. 1995. Kyosei yuki [A great saint passes away]. Tokyo.

aum j ournals Aum Shinrikyo, ed./publ. Enjoy Happiness, no. 1 (1992) Monthly Truth, no. 15 (1994) [English] Oumu shuppan/Aum Press, ed./publ. Mahayana, nos. 1–41 (1987–1991) Shinri, nos. 1–29 (1991–1993) Vajrayana Sacca, nos. 1–12 (1994–1995)

ot h er publi cat i ons Agon-shu, ed. 1989. The Agon-shu. The Original Teachings of the Buddha. Tokyo: Agon-shu. Asano, Kenichi. 1996. Masukomi hodo no hanzai. [Crimes of reporting by mass communication]. Tokyo: Kodansha bunko. ———. 1997. Oumu “habo–ho” to masumedia [The “Law for anti–subversive activities” [applied on] Aum and the mass media]. Tokyo: Daisan shokan.



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Brackett, D. W. 1996. Holy Terror. Armageddon in Tokyo. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill. Davis, Winston 1992. Dojo. Magic and Exorcism in Modern Japan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Egawa, Shoko. 1995a. Kyusei-shu no yabo [Ambitions of the savior]. Tokyo: Kyoiku shiryo shuppan-kai. ———. 1995b. “Oumu Shinrikyo” Tsuiseki 2200 nichi [Aum Shirikyo–2200 days in pursuit] Tokyo: Bungei shunka. Feuerstein, Georg. 1989. The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International. Gardner, Richard T. 1999. Lost in the Cosmos and the Need to Know. Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 54 (2): 217–246. ———. 2002a. A Revisited. Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 57 (2): 339–348. ———. 2002b. “The Blessing of Living in a Country Where There Are Senryu!”— Humor in the Response to Aum Shinrikyo. Asian Folklore Studies Vol. 61 (1): 35–75. Goto Ben. 1984 (113 ed.; first edition 1979). Nosutoradamusu no dai-yogen II [Grand prophecies of Nostradamus, Vol. 2]. Tokyo: Shodensha. ———. 1991 (81 ed.; first edition 1981). Nosutoradamusu no dai-yogen III. [Grand prophecies of Nostradamus, Vol. 3] Tokyo: Shodensha. ———. 1994 (449 ed.; first edition 1973). Nosutoradamusu no dai-yogen [Grand prophecies of Nostradamus, Vol. I]. Tokyo: Shodensha. Hardacre, Helen. 1995. Aum Shinriko and the Japanese Media: The Red Piper Meets the Lamb of God. Institute Reports. East Asian Institute. Columbia University. Hayashi Ikuo. 1998. Oumu to watakushi [Aum and me]. Tokyo: Bungei shunju. Hughes, Christopher W. 2001. The Reactions of the Police and Security Authorities to Aum Shinrikyo. In Religion and Social Crisis in Japan. Understanding the Japanese Society Through the Aum Affair. Ed. by Robert J. Kisala and Mark Mullins. New York: Palgrave, pp. 53–69. [first published 1998] Inoue Mitsusada, and Osone Shosuke, eds. 1974. Ojo-den. Hokke genki. [Stories of birth into the Pure Land. Miraculous records of the Lotus Sutra]. Nihon shiso taikei 7. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Irokawa Chihiro. 1990. Meshia shutsugen [The appearance of the messiah]. Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha. Kabanoff, Alexander. 2001. Aum Shinrikyo in Russia. Japanese Religions Vol. 26 (2): 149–170. Kaplan, David E., and Andrew Marshall. 1996. The Cult and the End of the World: The Incredible Story of Aum. London: Arrow Books. Ketelaar, James Edward. 1990. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan. Buddhism and Its Persecution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kiriyama Seiyu. 1973. Nenriki. Chonoryoku o mi ni tsukeru kokonotsu no hoho [Mental power. Nine methods to acquire supernatural powers]. Tokyo: Tokuma shoten.

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Kiriyama Seiyu. 1981. 1999 nen. Karuma to reisho kara dasshutsu [The year 1999. Escape from karma and spiritual hindrance]. Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha. ———. 1995a. 1999 nen 7 no tsuki ga kuru [The 7th month of the year 1999 comes]. Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha. ———. 1995b. Oumu Shinrikyo to Agon-shu [Aum Shinrikyo and Agon-shu]. Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha. Kisala, Robert. 1995 Aum Alone in Japan—Religious Responses to the “Aum Affair.” Bulletin of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture 19: 6–34. ———. 1997. Reactions to Aum: The Revisions of the Religious Corporations Law. Japanese Religions Vol. 22 (1): 60–74. ———. 1998. 1999 and Beyond: The Use of Nostradamus’ Prophecies by Japanese Religions, Japanese Religions Vol. 23 (Nos. 1 and 2): 143–157. Kisala, Robert J., and Mark R. Mullins, eds. 2001. Religion and Social Crisis in Japan. Understanding Japanese Society through the Aum Affair. New York: Palgrave. Krylova, Galina A. 2001. Psychiatry Treats Heterodoxy: The 1995 Aum Trial in Russia from a Lawyer’s Perspective. Japanese Religions Vol. 26 (2): 171–189. Kumamoto Nichinichi Shinbunsha, ed. 1995. Oumu Shinrikyo to mura no ronri [Aum Shinrikyo and the logic of a village]. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha. Kyodo tsushin-sha Shakai-bu, ed. 1997. Sabakareru kyoso. [The founder on trial]. Tokyo: Kyodo tsushinsha. Lewis, James, ed. 1999. Aum Shinrikyo and Human Rights. Special issue of Syzygi: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture. Vol. 8. Lifton, Robert Jay. 1999. Destroying the World to Save It. Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. New York: Metropolitan Books. LoBreglio, John. 1997. The Revisions to the Religious Corporations Law: An Introduction and Annotated Translation. Japanese Religions Vol. 22 (1): 38–59. Maeda Daisuke. 1997. “The Revenge of the Children.” Japanese Religions Vol. 22 (1): 87–91. Maekawa Michiko. 2001. When Prophecy Falls: The Response of Aum Members to the Crisis. In Religion and Social Crisis in Japan. Understanding the Japanese Society Through the Aum Affair. Ed. by Robert J. Kisala and Mark Mullins. New York: Palgrave, pp. 179–210. Mainichi Shinbun Shakai-bu, ed. 1996. Sabakareru ‘Oumu no yabo’ [Aum’s ambitions on trial]. Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbun-sha. ———. 1997. Oumu “kyoso” hotei zen-kiroku. Vol. 2. Watashi Wa Muzai da!! Tokyo: Gendai shokan. Matsuda Yukio. 2001. Back to Invented Tradition: A Nativist Response to National Crisis. In Religion and Social Crisis in Japan. Understanding the Japanese Society through the Aum Affair. Ed. by Robert J. Kisala and Mark Mullins. New York: Palgrave, pp. 163–177. Metraux, Daniel A. 1999. Aum Shinrikyo and the Japanese Youth. New York: University Press of America.



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Mikhailova, Yulia. 1996. The Aum Supreme Truth Sect in Russia. Bulletin of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia Vol. 16 (2–3): 15–34. Miller, Barbara Stoler. 1996. Discipline of Freedom. Berkeley: University of California Press. Miyai Rika. 1997. A Voice from the “Aum Generation.” Japanese Religions Vol. 22 (1): 91–96. Mullins, Mark R. 1997. The Political and Legal Response to the Aum-Related Violence in Japan. Japan Christian Quarterly Vol. 63: 37–46. Murakami Haruki. 1997. Andaguraundo. [Underground]. Tokyo: Kodansha. ———. 2001. Underground. The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. London: Harvill Press. Nunn Report. 1995. United States Senate. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Committee on Governmental Affairs. 1995. Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Hearings on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 1995. Okawa Ryuho. 1988. Nosutoradamusu no shin-yogen [New prophecies of Nostradamus]. Tokyo: Tsuchiya shoten. ———. 1991. Nosutoradamusu senritsu no keiji [Nostradamus’s revelation of frightfulness]. Tokyo: Kofuku no kagaku shuppan. Pye, Michael. 1996. Aum Shinrikyo—Can Religious Studies Cope? Religion Vol. 26: 261–270. Reader, Ian. 1988. The “New” New Religions of Japan—An Analysis of the Rise of Agonshu. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies Vol. 15 no. 4: 235–261. ———. 1996. A Poisonous Cocktail? Aum Shinriko’s Path to Violence. NIAS Special Report. NIAS Books. Copenhagen. ———. 2000. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan. The Case of Aum Shinrikyo. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press. Repp, Martin. 1995a. Who’s the First to Cast the Stone? Aum Shinrikyo, Religions and Society in Japan. Japan Mission Journal Vol. 49: 225–255. ———. 1995b. The Earthquake in the Kobe-Osaka Area January 17th 1995. It’s Impact on Religions and their Responses. Japanese Religions Vol. 20: 207–229. ———. 1996. Religion und Gewalt im gegenwartigen Japan. Der Fall Aum Shinrikyo. Dialog der Religionen. 6. Jg.: 190–202. ———. 1997a. Aum Shinrikyo. Ein Kapitel krimineller Religionsgeschichte. Marburg: diagonal-Verlag. ———. 1997b. Youth and New-New Religions—Challenges for the Churches in Present-day Japan. Japan Christian Review Vol. 63: 5–29. ———. 1997c. The Religious Situation of the “Aum Generation”—Two NCC Seminars. Japanese Religions Vol. 22: 87, 97–98. ———. 2000. Popular Culture and Religion in Contemporary Japan. Japanese Religions Vol. 25: 105–119. ———. 2001a. The “Trial of the Century”? Legal and Illegal Treatments of Aum after the Aum Incident. Religion—Staat—Gesellschaft 2. Jg.: 289–313.

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Repp, Martin. 200lb. Introduction to “Aum in Russia.” Japanese Religions Vol. 26 (2): 147–148. ———. 2003. “The Last Continent”—The Involvements of Aum Shinrikyo in ­Australia. Japan Mission Journal Vol. 57: 55–66. Roberts, Henry C. (trans.) 1994 (1st ed. 1982). The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus. London: Thorsons. Shimazono Susumu. 1995. In the Wake of Aum: The Formation and Transformation of a Universe of Belief. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies Vol. 22 (3–4): 381–415. Watanabe Manabu. 1997. Reactions to the Aum Affair. The Rise of the “Anti–Cult” Movement in Japan. Nanzan Bulletin Vol. 21: 32–48. Yamashita Akiko. 1998. The “Eschatology” of Japanese New and New New Religions: From Tenri-kyo to Kofuku no Kagaku. Japanese Religions Vol. 23 (Nos. 1 and 2): 143–157. Young, Richard. 1995. Lethal Achievements: Fragments of a Response to the Aum Shinrikyo Affair. Japanese Religions 20 (2): 230–245. Yuki Hideo. 1997. Problems with the Revisions to the Religious Corporations Law. Japanese Religions Vol. 22 (1): 75–86.

13

Falun Gong a narrative of pending apocalypse, shape-shifting aliens, and relentless persecution Helen Farley

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, emerged in the northeast of China in 1992 with adherents striving to achieve the ultimate aim of transforming the human flesh body into an immortal Buddha body. Although originating just over two decades ago, its doctrines, beliefs, and practices are drawn from much older Buddhist and Taoist canons and most directly from qigong (Adams 2011). Even so, Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, claims that it offers a highly personalized cultivation practice for everyone irrespective of social standing, socioeconomic background, or status (Adams 2011). Western scholars view Falun Gong as a new religious movement (NRM), though any connection or claim to religion is strenuously denied by its adherents (Ownby 2005). Although no official membership records are kept, Falun Gong claims some 100 million adherents around the world (Adams 2011). Outside of China, Falun Gong has attracted a massive following including a large proportion not of Chinese origin (Melton 2001). As Falun Gong spread quickly through China, it similarly spread to Chinese communities around the world in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and throughout Southeast Asia (Melton 2001). Since 1999, Falun Gong adherents have been regularly appearing at public events throughout Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Taiwan, and Canada, promulgating the message primarily through promoting the five meditative exercises. They also try to generate awareness of the human rights breaches against their members by the Chinese government (Adams 2011). By doing so, they hope to pressure Western governments into condemning the actions of the Chinese state (Ownby 2005). This chapter will provide an overview of

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the practices, doctrine, and history of Falun Gong but will particularly focus on the controversies inherent in this movement, specifically it will examine the complex alien and anti-science theology of Falun Gong and conclude with an examination of the movement’s clashes with the Chinese government and consequential apocalypticism born of those struggles.

The Qigong Boom The name Falun Gong, literally means “Dharma wheel practice” referring to a wheel allegedly placed in the abdomen of practitioners by founder Li Hongzhi and turned by the repeated practice of the five characteristic movements of the Falun Gong. The movement emerged as part of the larger qigong boom that swept China in the 1980s and 1990s. In Chinese, qigong is a composite of two words: qi meaning “vital breath” or “energy” and gong alluding to the acquisition of a skill or particular technique. Adherents of qigong maintain that their practices involve harnessing qi for various purposes generally to attain good health, reduce stress, and the cultivation of special skills such as precognition, clairaudience, ear-reading, and so on. The practice of qigong was encouraged by the Chinese government in the 1950s in order to address the shortage of Western-style doctors, foster Chinese culture, and promote good health (Ownby 2005). Although qigong had its origins in the folk religion, Taoism and Buddhism practiced across China, an attempt was made to strip the spiritual practices away from the purely physical practices and denude it of superstition in line with the shift toward a more scientific China (Ownby 2005). The techniques were central to a fabricated tradition that became standardized for use in a modern, secular state. The exercises were described from a purely technical angle and categorized according to a rational schema. Forms that were derived from martial arts became “hard forms” or ying qigong in contrast to “soft forms” or ruan qigong (Palmer 2007: 5). Even so, the practice of qigong still had a fundamentally Chinese medical or even a religious or spiritual feel. For example, mantras were chanted and prescribed exercises had to be practiced at the same time each day, with the body facing a specific direction. The strict practice of qigong had the feel of a religious ritual (Ownby 2008: 51). Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, qigong was transformed into a mass practice with the emergence of a number of charismatic leaders heading distinct movements. Through the 1970s and 1980s, it became commonplace to see practitioners in public spaces across China. Qigong was available to anyone irrespective of socioeconomic status or background. This enthusiasm for qigong was also evident in the Chinese academia with many scientists, eager to prove the scientific validity of qi and the legitimacy of the claims for



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supernormal powers (Ownby 2005). On the one hand, the Chinese government promoted the practice of qigong as a symbol of Chinese nationalism; on the other, they sought to regulate it by establishing the Chinese Qigong Scientific Research Association in April 1986 (Ownby 2005). The qigong boom saw hundreds of millions of adherents practicing the characteristic movements and breathing exercises, Chinese media was littered with stories pertaining to qigong and supernormal powers and Chinese academic journals bore testimony to the scientific validity of the qi and the extraordinary ways in which it could be harnessed. There were hundreds and perhaps thousands of qigong movements and at the center of each was a charismatic leader who was a celebrity in his or her own right, embarking on lecture tours, writing books, and making television appearances. Stadiums were sold out, adherents willing to pay for just a glimpse of their leader. By 1991, considerable criticism and cynicism about qigong was building. The Chinese government began to vigorously monitor qigong masters, associated literature, and qigong organizations with the goal of uncovering “false” or “unscientific” qigong (N. N. Chen 2003: 509).

The Emergence of Falun Gong It was in this charged milieu that Falun Gong emerged. Founded by a former low-ranking grain merchant, Li Hongzhi, in 1992, Falun Gong was initially embraced by the Chinese Qigong Scientific Research Association (J. Ching 2001). The association supported Li’s activities from 1992 to 1994, sponsoring his lecture tours. The Chinese regime asserts that Li learned qigong exercises in 1988, though Falun Gong sources say that he was schooled from the age of 8 in those disciplines by various masters from the Taoist and Buddhist traditions (Tong 2002: 639–640). Wherever the truth lies, Li Hongzhi did travel to Beijing in 1992 to conduct research sessions with a research group at the China Qigong Scientific Research Society. Shortly afterwards, the Falun Gong Research Society was established by Li and his associates: Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, and Yu Changxi. The new society was soon accredited and acknowledged as a branch of the larger organization, which in turn organized and marketed the Falun Gong training sessions (Tong 2002: 640). A series of Falun Gong practice centers were established to enable practitioners to come together and in this way the message of Li Hongzhi spread rapidly. Interestingly, even at this point, worship or teaching was strictly forbidden; all learning had to come directly from the videos, books, or websites of the movement rather than through teachers (Ownby 2005). The research sessions were terminated in 1994 when Li left China, according to official Falun Gong

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channels so that he could devote all of his time to the study of Buddhism. But in all probability his departure had more to do with the mounting opposition Falun Gong was a­ ttracting within Communist Party and Chinese government circles (Ownby 2008: 167). By the mid-1990s, Falun Gong had acquired tens of millions of adherents attracted by its minimal admission criteria, lack of membership fees, simple methods, and Li’s promises of health and salvation (Irons 2003: 250). In common with other qigong leaders, Li documented his teachings in a series of books (Ownby 2005). However, Li was soon to dismiss other qigong movements, criticizing their relentless pursuit of supernormal powers and crass materialism. He withdrew the Falun Gong Research Society from the National Qigong Federation, claiming uniqueness for his own movement (Melton 2001). He promulgated a deeper spiritual conviction and moral persuasion in contrast to the superficial pursuits of existing qigong movements. Li claimed that the practice of Falun Gong would drive a physical transformation and most significantly, a heightened understanding of the true nature of the universe and of one’s role within it (Ownby 2005). An emphasis was also placed on the divinity of Li and on his God-like powers, which enabled him to guarantee the health and well-being of his followers. In this way he is able to personally look after the health and welfare of every practitioner (Burgdoff 2003). Li claimed he could make himself invisible and pass through a pane of glass without breaking it (“China’s Battle with Falun Gong” 2001). He was also credited with clairvoyance, levitation, and the ability to see through his third eye, while asking his followers to eschew the pursuit of supernatural abilities (Burgdoff 2003). Of utmost importance was the emphasis placed on Li’s teachings. In this way, Falun Gong differed from the schools of qigong (Ownby 2005). Ahead of determined government persecution, Li Hongzhi finally left China in 1996, establishing himself in New York, from where he still directs the movement’s operations. He cleverly links himself to popular martial arts and fantasy literature (Burgdoff 2003: 335). Falun Gong practitioners have very little contact with Li except through his videos and books. There is a virtual “central” organization of cell-like groups. There is no central authority that maintains orthodoxy and no enforcement through dogmatic discipline (Burgdoff 2003: 334).

The Practice of Falun Gong At first glance the practice of Falun Gong seems remarkably easy: just five meditative exercises performed daily and an adherence to the teachings of Li



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Hongzhi (Adams 2011). Li claims that he formulated the exercises from his extensive knowledge of esoteric qigong and that the five exercises are superior to existing systems (Burgdoff 2003). The five exercises can be practised alone or with other practitioners and were first elucidated in the book China Falun Gong published in 1993. The five exercises can be learned in a few hours, enough to effectively practice with others. There is some level of discomfort associated with their practice, particularly with the exercises that require participants to remain motionless for several minutes at a time, but practitioners are told that this discomfort is due to the elimination of karma (Burgdoff 2003). The exercises are called Buddha Showing a Thousand Hands, Falun Standing Stance Exercise, Penetrating the Two Cosmic Extremes Exercise, Falun Heavenly Circulation Exercise, and Strengthening Divine Powers Exercise (Burgdoff 2003). Adherents believe that Li has placed a “dharma wheel” inside their lower abdomen and the practice of the five exercises turns the wheel, ultimately resulting in enlightenment and perfect health by expelling negative energy and drawing in positive energy (Adams 2011). When sufficiently advanced, the practitioner experiences the supreme nature of the cosmos invigorated from within by the “falun” energy (Leung 2002: 764). The dharma wheel is thought to be a microcosm of the universe, containing all of its secrets (Melton 2001: 542). The most important aspect of practice is adherence to Li’s work, especially Zhuan Falun (The revolving wheel of the Buddhist law) published in 1995. Practitioners often come together on a weekly basis to read or discuss Li’s books and to practice the exercises. Interestingly, Li is considered to be the sole interpretive authority of his books, even though outsiders to the movement are encouraged to read the works and reach their own conclusions. Adherents have no such interpretive freedom. It is considered normal for newcomers to incompletely understand the reasons in the beginning. Elucidation is said to come with repeated reading (Burgdoff 2003: 334). Li has published a number of books, many of which appear to be transcriptions of his lectures. Their content and narrative style ranges from accounts of adherents overcoming tribulations through adhering to the principles of truth, benevolence, and forbearance to rants against moral decline with a decided apocalyptic bent (Fisher 2003: 296). The writings of Li Hongzhi contain a great deal of moral content to go along with the body technologies (Ownby 2000). Most adherents believe that the first readings of Li’s works will engender a short period of illness in the reader as negative karma begins to be worked out of the body in accordance with Li’s teachings (Fisher 2003: 299–300). Even so, the leadership of the movement claims that it is not a religion, but merely promotes spiritual and moral cultivation (Keith and Lin 2003: 629–630).

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What Adherents Believe At first glance the tenets of Falun Gong seem benign. According to Li, the three cardinal principles of truth (zhen), benevolence (shan), and forbearance (ren) make up the physical universe. Good karma is accrued by forbearing the suffering inflicted by others while adhering to the teachings of Falun Gong (Fisher 2003).

Cultivation of the XinXing Salvation is achieved through adherence to these doctrines and diligent practice of the five exercises called “Cultivation of the XinXing.” The XinXing is the practitioner’s inner nature (Melton 2001); adherents cultivate zhen, shan, and ren, and by so doing, achieve oneness with the universe (Ownby 2005). In everyday life, these principles are made manifest by practitioners always being truthful, always being kind, and rising above the pettiness of the commonplace (Fisher 2003: 295–296). According to Li, each follower must realize that he or she is lost in the universe and that through adhering to zhen, shan, and ren will he or she come to his or her original self or yuanshen (Fisher 2003: 296). The turning of the dharma wheel removes most of a practitioner’s negative karma but forbearance is the means to remove the remnants of that karma. The process of the removal of the remainder of the karma is called xiaoye and is achieved through the practice of Falun Gong (Wessinger 2003: 221). Even though the dharma wheel cannot be dissected by medical practitioners, Falun Gong followers assert that it still exists but in another dimension not readily accessible by those at a lower level (Ownby 2008: 91). To further support this process of cultivation, Li directs “law bodies” or fashen, which are complete, independent, and realistic individuals that are flexible and invisible (Lu 2005: 177–178). The fashen are emanations of Master Li who splinter from him and work on his behalf to help practitioners with their struggles (Fisher 2003: 299).

Predetermination According to the tenets of Falun Gong, God has a plan laid out for every individual. Not every detail of a life is planned out, but the major milestones such as birth and death are planned to take place at certain immutable times. Obviously, Falun Gong practitioners are able to influence their own lives, but it is very difficult to extend a lifespan beyond an allotted time (Hongzhi 1999b: 27).



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Before a person dies, preparations are occurring for that individual’s next incarnation. A mother is pregnant, awaiting the birth of her child and the fetus is awaiting the consciousness of the individual. If someone dies by their own hand before his or her designated time, then that individual must wait between lives in a nether world until he or she has spent the allotted time of his or her own predestined lifespan. Once that time has passed, the individual will move into the next incarnation but with an additional accumulation of negative karma (Penny 2012: 116).

Scientism It is unsurprising given Falun Gong’s emergence from qigong that it draws heavily from traditional Chinese belief systems. What is interesting is the way these very traditional ideas are combined with a sort of scientism (Ownby 2005). In line with Buddhism, adherents are asked to renounce all “attachments” including to meat, intoxicants, material possessions, medicines, or other people (Ownby 2005). The breathing and meditative aspects of Falun Gong can be traced back to the breathing exercises used to increase potency and longevity in Taoism (Chang 2004: 39). Yet, the movement is given a contemporary veneer via references to UFOs and science, and by its extensive use of modern technologies such as email and the Internet to disperse its message (Leung 2002: 782). The arrogance of modern science and the limitations of the scientific paradigm are consistent themes in Li’s writings and lectures. His own vision is proffered to replace current scientific understanding. By doing so, he relativizes the value of science, implying that the absolute truth that scientists claim is not so absolute after all (Ownby 2000). He focuses the discourse on the many things that scientists cannot explain, filling these gaps with an alternative account which can generally be considered “para-­scientific” or “pseudoscientific”; these alternative paradigms are generally poorly received by the scientific community both in China and overseas (Ownby 2008: 97). Li claims to have moved beyond the paltry science of man and is privy to a transcendent science which involves, for example, an alternative explanation of gravity (Ownby 2005). He freely talks of 260-million-year-old human footsteps and a 2-million-year-old nuclear reactor in Africa (Burgdoff 2003). Even given the modern veneer of pseudoscience, many of Falun Gong’s doctrines can be interpreted as being socially conservative. Li Hongzhi speaks out against homosexuality, feminism, popular music, and even unconventional dress styles (“China’s Battle with Falun Gong” 2001).

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Karma There is frequent reference to “karma” in Li’s teachings, but it is quite distinct from the notion described by Buddhism. Physical and spiritual tribulations are to be regarded as manifestations of negative karma and are to be welcomed as opportunities to rid oneself of such karma (Burgdoff 2003). Karma is described as a black, sticky substance which through diligent practice of the five meditations and through suffering in the form of illness, can be renovated until it is white and pure. In line with the scientific bent of Li’s teachings, this corresponds to a change on a molecular level in the adherent’s body which manifests in good health. This belief in illness as a manifestation of bad karma results in most practitioners eschewing doctors, medical treatment, and surgery. There have been many high-profile cases of Falun Gong adherents dying because they refuse medical treatment (Ownby 2005). According to believers, such treatment only serves to keep negative karma trapped inside the body (“China’s Battle with Falun Gong” 2001).

Alien Theology Perhaps the most striking and controversial characteristic of Falun Gong belief is the complex theology around aliens and masters. Li talks about a gradual infiltration of human society by alien entities (F. Ching 2001). A complex pantheon of deities, spirit entities, and demons interfere with life, society, and greater human history (Melton 2001). Science is likened to a religion controlled by a clergy of bachelors, masters, doctors, research fellows, and doctors. But according to Li, “science” is actually formulated by aliens in order to infiltrate human society and gain control over humanity. In an interview appearing in Time magazine in 1999, Li described some of the aliens: “One type of alien looks like a human but has a nose made of a bone” (Hongzhi in Van Biema and FlorCruz 1999). In this worldview, aliens abduct humans and use them as pets on their home planet. These same aliens covet the human body believing it to be perfect. Li also asserted that the aliens have been moving among us since about 1900 with the intent to replace humans with clones (Palmer 2007: 225). The aliens inject their “things” into the molecules and cells of humans, turning them into slaves of computers and machines (Palmer 2007: 227). In his own words: The aliens have introduced modern machinery like computers and airplanes. They started by teaching mankind about modern science, so people believe more and more science, and spiritually, they are



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controlled. Everyone thinks that scientists invent on their own when in fact their inspiration is manipulated by the aliens. In terms of culture and spirit, they already control man. Mankind cannot live without science. (Hongzhi in Weiner 2000: 10) Apparently, each person that uses a computer has even now been assigned a serial number by the aliens (Palmer 2007: 227). Li also claims that humanity has existed on the planet far longer than current scientific thinking would allow. This current civilization is just one of many that have existed; flourishing for a short time before becoming decadent and degenerate prior to being destroyed in a manner similar to that described as the cycle of the yugas in Hindu scripture. Each time, a very few survivors eventually repopulate the planet and begin the cycle once more (Chang 2004: 68). The survivors are subsequently transported to another planet by the aliens, taking with them their technology so that they can begin again at a relatively technologically developed stage. Furthermore, there are other intelligent beings indigenous to certain planets, which are continuing to develop and are, in fact, more advanced than current human civilization. These aliens can move into other dimensions with their spaceships and are able to navigate through other timespace continua at inconceivable speeds. However, they are morally undeveloped and their greed and lust have resulted in intergalactic “star wars.” Earth’s human population has escaped their attention thus far as we pose no credible threat but when humankind does become more powerful and threatening, humanity will not be spared (Chang 2004: 70). It is noteworthy, that given this acknowledgement of supernatural entities, adherents insist that Falun Gong is not a religion. According to the adherents themselves, as Falun Gong has no temple or official headquarters and there are no formal rituals it does not constitute a religion. The Falun Gong bureaucracy takes no fees from its adherents who always gather in public (Ackerman 2005: 497).

Impending Apocalypse What is more disturbing than the alien theology of Falun Gong is the apocalypticism that characterizes it. Li argues that the world has been destroyed and created some eighty-one times and destruction and subsequent renewal are imminent. Again, this tendency reflects the apocalypticism seen in some popular forms of Taoism and Buddhism, however, these aspects were not evident in Falun Gong before the Chinese government’s suppression of the movement (Ownby 2005: 2981). Li depicted the repression by the Chinese government as a “final trial.” Those who martyred themselves to the

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cause could be expected to receive instant “cultivation” or enlightenment, the goal toward which every adherent struggles (Ownby 2005: 2981). This impending destruction is caused by the increasingly degenerate society. Adherents will be saved and propelled to a higher plane (“China’s Battle with Falun Gong” 2001). Falun Gong will help to re-establish harmony in the cosmos through a process of fa-rectification as an antidote to the moral degeneration that characterizes modern life including the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese government. Falun Gong’s founder is convinced that the moral decadence of these times will inevitably lead to an apocalypse. He refers often to the “Dharma-ending period” of “the apocalypse,” the “great havoc,” and the “end times.” He insists that moral values are deteriorating daily and that civilization will be annihilated because human beings are no longer “up to standard”; but fortunately, Falun Gong will provide salvation for humankind (Chang 2004: 91). Science is particularly culpable due to its propagation of a “faulty understanding of the human race, nature, and matter,” which in turn has resulted in “the degeneration of morality in today’s human society” (Hongzhi 1999a: 83). The process of farectification will return all the spiritual beings of the universe to their correct hierarchical place and return the universe to order. True practitioners will be elevated to a higher spiritual plane while the rest of humanity will sink to a lower level (Burgdoff 2003).

Clashes with the Chinese Government What many Westerners know about Falun Gong is derived from the extensive and controversial media coverage generated by clashes between adherents and the Chinese government. Before this much publicized conflict, Li rarely commented on politics but appeared to be patriotic and nationalistic. Although other charismatic leaders of qigong movements were careful not to upset the government, Li seemed to make no such concessions. In Zhuan Falun, he wrote freely about spirit possession and extra-terrestrials in a move that could not be considered to be conciliatory to the government (Ownby 2005). The Chinese government perceived Falun Gong to be a threat to party leadership and social stability (Fisher 2003: 303). Falun Gong practitioners could be readily mobilized in response to perceived slights by the media. As these media outlets were merely mouthpieces for the government, these reactions were soon interpreted as being “political.” Mostly these slights consisted of the perceived promulgation of false information about Falun Gong and retractions or rectifications were requested. Falun Gong practitioners



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are so intent on correcting these untruths because of the central tenet of truthfulness to which they must adhere (Fisher 2003: 305). Although these protests were not violent, China does not have a track record of public civil disobedience and the government was unnerved when the state-run Beijing television station was surrounded in May 1998 (Ownby 2005). The rash of criticism about Falun Gong that began to appear in the Chinese media made it obvious that Falun Gong had critics in high places. Critics of both Falun Gong and qigong claimed that these movements represented a return to feudal superstition. Probably in response to these criticisms, Li ­Hongzhi left China for the United States in 1996. This coincided with the beginning of some more significant protests by Falun Gong adherents in China. The Chinese government became increasingly concerned that Falun Gong remained an “official” qigong movement (Ownby 2005). Li left China permanently in 1998, relocating to New York (Melton 2001: 542). The following year, on April 29, 1999, in response to a media story in neighboring Tianjin, up to 15,000 Falun Gong adherents surrounded Communist Party Headquarters at Zhongnanhai. This was the largest protest in China since the student democracy protests in 1989 and came as somewhat of a shock to Chinese authorities. This action resulted in a brutal crackdown with Falun Gong denounced as a dangerous “heterodox sect” (Ownby 2005: 2978). The demographic makeup of the protesters was as much of a concern to the Chinese government as their numbers. The protesters were not just idealistic young people, but many were middle aged, some even elderly with leadership positions within the Communist Party (Fisher 2003: 303). Even though the Falun Gong did not have any motive other than recognition of the legitimacy of the movement, the Chinese government saw them as an unacceptable threat (“China’s Battle with Falun Gong” 2001). Books, videos, and other paraphernalia were confiscated. Falun Gong practitioners sought out leaders at all levels, insisting on the benevolence of the movement. The most visible instance of this occurred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where thousands of practitioners gathered, only to be imprisoned, detained, and tortured by Chinese authorities (Ownby 2005: 2981). A significant part of this protest was the alleged self-immolation of a number of adherents. Five members set themselves alight as a protest against Chinese persecution of the movement (F. Ching 2001). Falun Gong authorities claim this was a fabrication perpetuated by the Chinese government in order to discredit the movement. The Chinese government claimed that Falun Gong was an evil, brainwashing cult that drives its followers to insanity (“China’s Battle with Falun Gong” 2001).Whatever the intention, these self-immolations did alienate many of the Chinese population who had been until that point, supportive of the movement

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(Ownby 2005). By the time Falun Gong was outlawed some three months later by the Chinese government, the movement claimed some 70 million practitioners (Adams 2011). In response, tens of thousands protested in ten cities including Beijing. Within a week 5,000 practitioners had been rounded up, taken away by the police to schools and sports stadiums (Chan 2004: 666). Although most were later released, seventy to a hundred leaders were arrested (J. Ching 2001). On November 1, 1999, the Steering Committee of the National Peoples’ Congress (NPC) passed a law concerning heterodox religion, which specifically targeted Falun Gong, legitimizing the government’s first wave of attacks on the movement (Leung 2002: 261). Forbearance is one of the central tenets of Falun Gong and practitioners saw that the continued persecution by the Chinese government as a test of forbearance. Li publicly reinforced this view of the ongoing torture and imprisonment of practitioners. Adherents believe that if they remain strong in the face of such adversity that they will work through negative karma. In this way, the continued persecution by the Chinese government is binding Falun Gong practitioners together, believing that they will spiritually progress as a result of the struggle (Fisher 2003). The outlawing of the movement in 1999, signaled the beginning of a bipartisan propaganda war between Falun Gong adherents and the Chinese government, each claiming the other was responsible for deceptions, atrocities, and conspirational plots (Biggs 2005: 205). The Chinese government has tried to counter much of the negative publicity associated with their well-­ publicized persecutions of adherents by enlisting the help of outspoken critics of cults in the West, including stage magician and scientific skeptic James Randi (Melton 2001). In addition, they have strenuously called for the United States to allow extradition of Li Hongzhi back to China to stand trial. For their part, the US government has resisted, instead condemning China’s persecution of Falun Gong adherents (Melton 2001). It is difficult to ascertain the truth behind the claims and counterclaims by both the practitioners and the Chinese government given the difficulty of access and restriction of the free flow information in that country (Burgdoff 2003: 333). No doubt, the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese government has provided adherents with a common enemy to unite against and has served to forge the identity of Falun Gong as a human rights movement (H. Chen 2012: 413). The controversy is ongoing with claims of the Chinese government accused of torturing, unlawfully detaining, killing, and harvesting the organs of Falun Gong adherents within China, something the government strenuously denies (Matas and Kilgour 2006).



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Conclusion As China emerges as a formidable economic and military superpower in the twenty-first century, while embracing the liberal capitalism and technological innovation of the West, it struggles to shrug off the shadow of repression that characterized the Cultural Revolution. Falun Gong is caught in this dichotomy, on the one hand, embracing Internet technologies to spread its message and maintain a doctrinal and practical cohesion, and, on the other, posing a perceived threat to the stability of the Chinese government and its leaders because of its influence. This chapter has provided an overview of the emergence of the movement of Falun Gong from the qigong boom of the 1980s, while examining the central tenets of its theology and practices. Importantly, it considers what can be considered to be the two most controversial aspects of the movement, namely its complex theology featuring shape-shifting aliens, multiple planes of existence, and impending apocalypse; but also a brief history of Falun Gong’s persecution by the Chinese government. It is this last aspect that is most known to those in the West, who are curious about new religions and spiritual movements. As China increasingly embraces the freedoms and spoils of the West, it will be interesting to see how both the Chinese government and Falun Gong adapt to this changing cultural, economic, and social milieu.

Bibliography Ackerman, S. E. 2005. “Falun Dafa and the New Age Movement in Malaysia: Signs of Health, Symbols of Salvation.” Social Compass 52, no. 2: 495–511. Adams, R. J. T. 2011. “Falun Gong.” In Encyclopedia of Global Religion, edited by M. Juergensmeyer and W. C. Roof, 389. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. doi: 10.4135/9781412997898. Biggs, M. 2005. “Dying Without Killing: Self-Immolations, 1963–2002.” In Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by D. Gambetta, 173–208. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burgdoff, C. A. 2003. “How Falun Gong Practice Undermines Li Hongzhi’s Totalistic Rhetoric.” Nova Religio 6, no. 6: 332–347. Chan, C. S.-C. 2004. “The Falun Gong in China: A Sociological Perspective.” China Quarterly 179: 665–683. Chang, M. H. 2004. Falun Gong: The End of Days. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chen, H. 2012. “International Falun Gong Movement on the Web.” In Dark Web: Exploring and Data Mining the Dark Side of the Web, edited by id, 407–425. New York: Springer. Chen, N. N. 2003. “Healing Sects and Anti-Cult Campaigns.” China Quarterly 174: 505–520.

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“China’s Battle with Falun Gong.” 2001. Strategic Comments 7, no. 2: 1–2. Ching, F. 2001. “Falun Gong: Giant vs. Ghost.” Far Eastern Economic Review 164, no. 7: 32. Ching, J. 2001. “The Falun Gong: Religious and Political Implications.” American Asian Review (January) 19, no. 1: 1–18. Fisher, G. 2003. “Resistance and Salvation in Falun Gong: The Promise and Peril of Forbearance.” Nova Religio 6, no. 2: 294–311. Hongzhi, L. 1999a. Falun Buddha Law: Lectures in the United States. Hong Kong: Falun Fo Fa Publishing Co. ———. 1999b. Falun Dafa: Lecture in Sydney. http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/ pdf/sydney.pdf. Irons, E. 2003. “Falun Gong and the Sectarian Religion Paradigm.” Nova Religio 6, no. 2: 244–262. Keith, R. C., and Z. Lin. 2003. “The ‘Falun Gong Problem’: Politics and the Struggle for the Rule of Law in China.” China Quarterly 175: 623–642. Leung, B. 2002. “China and Falun Gong: Party and Societal Relations in the Modern Era.” Journal of Contemporary China 11, no. 33: 761–784. Lu, Y. 2005. “Entrepreneurial Logics and the Evolution of Falun Gong.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44, no. 2: 173–185. Matas, D., and D. Kilgour. 2006. Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China. July 6. http://www.david-kilgour.com/2006/ Kilgour-Matas-organ-harvesting-rpt-July6-eng.pdf. Melton, J. G., ed. 2001. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Detroit, MI: Gale Group. Ownby, D. 2000. Transnational China Project Commentary: “Falungong as a Cultural Revitalization Movement: An Historian Looks at Contemporary China.” Rice University. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~tnchina/commentary/ownby1000.html. ———. 2005. “Falun Gong.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., Vol. 5, edited by L. Jones, 2978–2981. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. ———. 2008. Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Palmer, D. A. 2007. Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China. London: Hurst & Company. Penny, B. 2012. The Religion of Falun Gong. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tong, J. 2002. “An Organizational Analysis of the Falun Gong: Structure, Communications, Financing.” China Quarterly 171: 636–660. Van Biema, D., and J. A. FlorCruz. 1999. “The Man with the Qi.” Time 153 (May 10): 74–77. Weiner, R. 2000. “Grassroots Conservatism Comes of (New) Age.” Tikkun 15 (January/ February): 9–13. Wessinger, C. 2003. “Falun Gong Symposium: Introduction and Glossary.” Nova Religio 6, no. 2: 215–222.

PART THREE

Western Esoteric and New Age Groups

14

Scientology the making of a religion Kjersti Hellesøy

although the movement has attracted critical attention almost from the beginning, in more recent years the number of exposé books and articles that have been written about the Church of Scientology (CoS) has grown exponentially. Many of these have focused on alleged atrocities committed by the church against its own members. The massive negative attention that the CoS has received over the years has made it increasingly difficult to find more balanced sources on Scientology. This is probably one of the reasons why, until very ­recently, there were few scholarly studies on the CoS. Another issue is the pressure the church has put on people they consider to be critical, whether journalists writing exposés or scholars doing scientific research. Yet another problem that anyone who wants to write about Scientology faces is that readily available sources are typically biased in one direction or the other. In this chapter, I will attempt to look beyond, yet not ignore, the controversies that surround CoS.

The Origins of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard Lafayette Ron Hubbard is the founder of Scientology. He was born in Tilden, Nebraska, in 1911, the only child of US navy officer Harry Ross Hubbard and Ledora May Waterbury Hubbard. It is difficult to write a history of L. Ron Hubbard that both followers and critics can agree on, as his life has been described in highly contradictory ways, depending on who you ask. Hugh Urban characterizes the official biography of Hubbard, as presented by the CoS, as a kind of hagiography, an idealized narrative built around mythic themes.

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In the hagiographic narrative of the life of Hubbard, he can best be described as an adventurer. He is portrayed as a boy who was initiated into the Blackfoot tribe at the age of 6 and who became the youngest Eagle Scout ever in the United States. He is said to have learned about the mysteries of life from spiritual teachers in the Far East. He also had an early interest in Freud’s psychoanalysis, introduced to him by a friend of his father. Hubbard went to George Washington University for two years. According to the hagiographic account, Hubbard was an engineer and astrophysicist, and held a PhD. Critical investigation has demonstrated that he never even finished any of his degrees, and that his PhD came from a diploma-mill university, never recognized by the state of California. Toward the end of the Second World War, Hubbard was injured and spent some time in a hospital. In his own account he suffered from blindness and was declared dead twice. He allegedly cured himself from these using techniques he had developed from psychoanalysis. During his early adulthood, Hubbard claimed to have experienced so many things that “he would have to have been at least 483 years old,” as a former member of Hubbard’s staff, Cyril Vosper, asserted (Urban 2011: 33). Urban (2011:32) views the stories of Hubbard’s adventures as a young man (as a pilot, a Marine Corps reservist, radio entertainer, scriptwriter, explorer), as “the hero’s journey” frequently seen in mythological traditions. As with many other founders of religions, he is believed to have traveled the world, encountered strange traditions, been confronted with danger, and then returned with a deeper understanding of the reality of life and with a new hope for humankind. From the early 1930s, Hubbard was writing pulp fiction under a variety of pseudonyms. Some of his stories are still considered to be classics of this genre, such as Fear and Final Blackout. He became one of the most productive writers for the influential science fiction magazine Astounding Science Fiction, where he later would publish the article that really sparked off the new science he had developed—Dianetics.

Dianetics The first report on Hubbard’s discovery of Dianetics was published in May 1950 in an issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Later that same year, an expanded version of the article was printed in book form under the title ­Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This new science was said to be as important as “the discovery of fire and superior to the wheel and arch” (Urban 2011: 43). The book was at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for twenty-eight weeks.

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Dianetics resembles Freudian psychoanalysis, but, according to Hubbard, his newfound science had improved what psychoanalysts had tried to do. With Dianetics, humankind had received a science which would get rid of all psychological and psychosomatic ills. In Dianetics the fundamental idea is that all such ills stem from past traumatic events hidden in the unconscious. Hubbard introduced “Analytical Mind” and “Reactive Mind” as terms for the conscious and the unconscious mind. The Analytical Mind is the rational, fully conscious state, which operates according to the data it receives ­(Whitehead 1987: 59). The Analytical Mind is thus dependent on this data. Any aberration in the Analytical Mind stems from painful incidents, physical or emotional. Through evolution, the Reactive Mind has evolved to protect the Analytical Mind from damage. The Analytical Mind will try to avoid pain, as pain is a threat to survival (the basic principle of existence, as Hubbard saw it). Thus, when a person experiences pain, the Analytical Mind switches off, and the Reactive Mind comes into operation (Wallis 1977: 25). Traumatic events create “engrams” in the Reactive Mind, which are memories containing the whole event in detail—the smell, words, pain, objects, and so on. So if one of the elements of the traumatic event is activated and relived, other elements of the experience can come back, because they are all tied together in the engram. If, for example, someone was drinking coffee when hit in the head, the smell of coffee can cause a headache. The Analytical Mind will try to make these impulses rational, but cannot operate properly, because the data it receives is incorrect. The Dianetic solution to this is to “clear” the Reactive Mind of such engrams so that the Analytic Mind can operate to its fullest potential without the input of “false” data. To do this the “pre-clear” (or PC) has to undergo the process of “auditing” in which he or she is guided by an “auditor” to go back to traumatic events, repeatedly describing them until the events are “discharged” of all negative feelings associated with them. To become clear, one even has to go back to the initial traumatic event, which can be as far back as prior to birth in the womb. When the state of clear has been achieved, the clear will be freed from any psychosomatic illness, improve his or her memory, be more resistant to regular illnesses, improve her or his IQ, and so on. The popularity of Hubbard’s book prompted thousands of Dianetic clubs to be formed all over the United States and also in Great Britain. The appeal to many was that it was so accessible; one could do this “poor man’s psychotherapy” in one’s own living room. But this “do it yourself” approach was also what made it impossible for Hubbard to control his new movement (Urban 2011: 53–54).

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Scientology The shift from a science-based movement to a religion came about gradually and was probably an effect of factors from both outside and inside Hubbard’s new movement. He lost the control over the name “Dianetics,” which he sold due to economic problems (he later bought the rights to the name back). ­Another factor was the interest taken by the FDA and the American Medical Association in his new therapy. These outside critics as well as some people within the Dianetics movement itself were troubled by, among other things, the fact that the auditors had no medical training. Additionally, Hubbard ­himself became more and more interested in some of the spiritual aspects emerging from auditing, such as out-of-body experiences and reports of reincarnation (Urban 2011: 59). One of the things Hubbard claimed he had “discovered” was that the essence of the human being was a spiritual being. This spiritual being, which is in itself good and fully conscious, Hubbard called a “thetan.” From this deeper understanding of the human essence, where he saw survival as the fundamental urge for all thetans, he also discovered that the four ­dynamics of ­Dianetics had to be expanded to eight: from the basic urge to survive as an physical being, to the urge to survive as “the Supreme Being,” or “Infinity” (Urban 2011: 67). Hubbard further believed that the thetans were inhabiting our human bodies. Thus when undergoing auditing, people could remember past lives, and also have engrams from past lives cleared. The shift toward religion meant that auditors were now ordained as ministers, and that they could practice Scientology without interference from the FDA. After establishing the CoS, they asserted the right to tax exemption granted to all religions in the United States, something critics of Scientology have claimed was Hubbard’s only reason for introducing Scientology as a religion. The question of Scientology’s status as a religion has defined the organization throughout its history and continues to be a controversial issue for governments all over the world.

Beliefs and Practices Beliefs The teachings of Scientology are developed from Hubbard’s ongoing exploration of the human mind and the thetan. Through auditing and by studying his fellow Scientologists, Hubbard discovered new truths about human behavior and the cosmos at large as he went along. Because of this always-in-process

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approach, the teachings of Hubbard can be very confusing to an outsider (and probably to some insiders as well). To put it simply, one can say that first and foremost the goal for the CoS is to clear the planet. Scientologists believe that if their technology is spread and implemented across the globe, all wars, poverty, and human suffering will come to an end. Another central doctrine in Scientology is the distinction between the MEST universe and the “theta” universe. MEST stands for Matter, Energy, Space, and Time and is the world we live in, while the theta universe is in the realm of spirit. Thetans originally created MEST, but later forgot and are now trapped within it. Through Scientology the thetans we all are can be freed from the MEST. What Hubbard called “the history of Man” constitutes his theories about the “Time Track” of humankind. He considered all humans to be thetans, and thetans to be immortal. They had thus lived for billions of years (Whitehead 1987: 168–172). At the third level of Operating Thetan (OT III), Scientologists are introduced to the secret doctrine of the church, which is considered to be so powerful that it can lead to death or serious damage for the person learning about it before he or she is prepared. Therefore, Scientologists have to be invited to do the OT III, plus they sign a contract of secrecy. The mythological story has nevertheless been leaked to the Internet and has even entered pop culture, after it was the subject of a South Park episode. The story that has come out is that a Galactic Confederacy consisting of seventy-six planets existed 75 million years ago. This confederacy was ruled by the dictator Xenu who killed billions of people by placing hydrogen bombs in volcanos on earth, as a way of coping with the problem of overpopulation in the federation. The thetans survived, and over time they attached themselves to what we today know as the modern human race. These thetans are called “body thetans,” which cluster themselves on human beings and cause pain. As with engrams, these body thetans have to be cleared, through advanced auditing (Urban 2011: 102–105). This somewhat simplistic version of the Scientology beliefs could be called the mythology of Scientology, but it is important to remember that Hubbard emphasized that this was merely speculation, not established fact (Whitehead 1987: 170).

Practices When someone is introduced to Scientology, he or she starts the journey up what Scientologists call “The Bridge to Total Freedom,” or just “The Bridge.” The initial stage is Dianetics auditing, so the first step is to become clear—a process that focuses on optimizing an individual’s potential in his or her

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lifetime. The next levels focus on becoming an “Operating Thetan,” which brings with it limitless powers. The path along the bridge is twofold, consisting of auditing, on the one hand, and “training” so that one can become an auditor her- or himself, on the other. Auditing is the key practice in Scientology. In an auditing session the person being audited typically holds a metal can in each hand that are both connected to a device called an E-meter. The E-meter measures the electric charge through the skin, similar to a lie detector. The auditor helps the person go back to past events, or sometimes past life experiences, and runs through the traumatic experiences until the person is cleared from all emotional charge (the engram) connected with that experience. There are variations on how auditing is done, depending on the goal of the auditing session (Whitehead 1987: 158–167). The Training Routines (TRs) are the other way up the Bridge and act as a preparation for one to become an auditor. These RTs are drills meant to develop the auditor’s ability to engage the pre-clear in the highly focused form of communication needed to climb the levels of the Bridge. RTs can be exercises where the pre-clear has to look into the auditor’s eyes for long periods of time, or where the auditor tries to put the pre-clear off by saying upsetting or provoking things to her. If the pre-clear fails, the auditor shouts “flunk!” and they start the drill over again (Whitehead 1987: 135–142). What we think of as classical religious sermons are not essential to the regular practitioner of Scientology. Their main activities are auditing and RTs. However, the church does offer ceremonies, such as weekly services said to resemble those of a Protestant Christian church, and rites of passage like weddings and funerals. There are no rooms dedicated specifically to these purposes, but rooms can be made into sanctuaries whenever needed (Bromley and Cowan 2008: 38–39).

Organizational Structure The structure of the CoS can be seen as resulting from Hubbard’s wish to have more control than he had over the early Dianetics movement. Thus, he created an elaborate bureaucratic organization, with a hierarchy that gave him full control over the church. Like a McDonald’s restaurant, each local Mission is a Scientology franchise organization. Also, and unlike the earlier Dianetics movement, there is a strong inner disciplinary structure. If a Mission deviates from the standard technology provided by the CoS, its license can be revoked (Melton 2000: 40). This is a highly efficient process for preventing “heretics” from watering down the principles of Scientology and delivers a standard

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religious technology to the customers, no matter where in the world you are located. The bureaucratization of the organization makes few people irreplaceable, and the hierarchy is centralized and clear (Wallis 1977: 155). At the basic grass-roots level of Scientology, there are counseling groups and Missions with local field auditors which introduce newcomers to the religion and which offer basic auditing up through Clear. Churches also ordain ministers and run local social service and community action programs. In the so-called Saint Hill Organizations (named after the center in Saint Hill, UK, which was Scientology’s world headquarters for many years), ministers can go for longer periods of time to receive advanced training. There are Saint Hill Organizations in Los Angeles, Sydney, and East Grinstead. If someone wishes advance from Clear to Operating Thetan (OT), they can go to an Advanced Organization, which provides courses that raise one from OT I to OT V. Advanced Organizations are currently in Los Angeles, Sydney, East Grinstead, and also in Copenhagen (Melton 2000: 39–40). The Flag Service Organization in Clearwater, Florida, is currently the world’s largest Scientology center. There Scientologists are trained and a­ udited to reach the OT VI and OT VII, in addition to special auditing for specific concerns. The highest level of Scientology, OT VIII, is offered by the Foundation Church of Scientology, also named the Flag Ship Service Organization. The training is undergone aboard a ship named the Freewinds, a luxurious cruise ship with a recreational environment (Melton 2000: 41). The Church of Scientology International has been the umbrella organization for all the churches and organizations within the CoS since 1981. Among their tasks is the translation of Hubbard’s books and coordination of church growth. They are the CoS’s visible point of unity and ensure the uniformity of the teachings and technology of Hubbard (Melton 2000: 41). At the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy is the Religious Technology Center (RTC). The RTC is in charge of maintaining the orthodoxy of Hubbard’s technology and teaching, and gives out licenses to Missions, churches, organizations, and corporations that wish to use the church’s trademarks. The center formally owns all of the Dianetics and Scientology trademarks. The Church of Spiritual Technology is in charge of the heritage of Hubbard, mainly his written material, which is copied, stored, and preserved for posterity (Melton 2000: 41–42). Celebrities have helped Scientology become one of the world’s most famous new religions. As early as in 1955 Hubbard announced something he called “Project Celebrity” in which he encouraged ambitious Scientologists to go after celebrities, as he saw them as the world’s elite who would lead the way to Scientology for the masses. Celebrities are recruited through Scientology

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Celebrity Centers, the largest strategically placed in Hollywood, Los Angeles. These centers give celebrities the opportunity to explore the path up the Bridge in a luxurious environment, fit for their lifestyle (Melton 2000: 42–43). In 1984, all churches around the world where united in the International Association of Scientologists (IAS). The IAS is active in the fight for religious freedom and gives out prizes to people in the forefront of civil rights efforts (Melton 2000: 43). The Sea Organization, popularly called the Sea Org, is the monastic wing of Scientology. The Sea Org comprises the most devoted Scientologists, something made clear when they sign billion-year contracts to serve the Church. The Sea Org is in charge of the upper levels of OT training (Melton 2000: 43). The publication of Scientology literature is divided into Bridge Publications in Los Angeles, serving North America with books and pamphlets mostly written by Hubbard; New Era Publications in Denmark, serving Europe and the rest of the world; and Golden Era Productions, producing audio-visual materials. The science fiction, fantasy, and pulp literature Hubbard wrote are managed by the Author Services, Inc. (Melton 2000: 44). The CoS has fostered a wide variety of organizations for social betterment. These organizations are, in varying degrees, directly associated with the CoS. The most famous programs are probably Narconon and Criminon, which apply Hubbard’s techniques and philosophy to rehabilitate drug addicts and criminals. Hubbard also developed a program on how to learn and study, and this “Applied Scholastics” has spread to different parts of the world, both in public schools and in special Applied Scholastics licensed schools. “The Way to Happiness” is a basic ethics pamphlet promoted as “a common sense guide to better living,” and The Way to Happiness Foundation International is a nonprofit organization in charge of distributing this pamphlet all over the world (Melton 2000: 47–48). From the very beginnings, Scientology has been a bitter critic of psychiatry. One of Scientology’s largest social reform programs is the “Citizens Commission on Human Rights” (CCHR). Since 1969, the CCHR has campaigned against psychiatric treatments such as electro shock and lobotomy, lobbied against the use of mood-altering drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, and exposed psychiatrists caught in immoral relationships with patients. Another major cause for Scientologists arises from their belief that they have been victimized by government agencies, delivering false information to governments in other parts of the world. This concern is addressed through the “National Commission on Law Enforcement and Social Justice.” Their lobbying has led to laws which open government files to public scrutiny in different countries, such as in France and Australia (Melton 2000: 48–51). Hubbard’s thoughts on

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­ anagement, business, and organization are managed by World Institute of m Scientology Enterprises (WISE). WISE has training programs for professionals and business people, and has a special emphasis on the importance of a high ethical environment in the business world (Melton 2000: 51–52).

Controversies Becoming a Religion Scientology has been a controversial movement from Hubbard’s initial presentation of Dianetics and up until the present. A major question posed by critics has been: Is it a religion? This question has been important for the CoS, both in terms of the legitimization of the church’s activities and in terms of the legal rights to which religious groups are entitled. When Hubbard shifted his movement from therapy (Dianetics) to religion (Scientology), it might well have been for the benefits the movement would receive if it became a religion—as much as it might have been the result of Hubbard’s discovery of past life experiences and his exploration of the thetan. When Hubbard first published his Dianetics article in 1950, he reached out to the American Medical Association and the American Psychology Association, but his new science was dismissed as pseudoscience. The expansion of Dianetics societies made the FDA take an interest in the movement, as they were practicing therapy without a license. This quackery accusation could easily be avoided if auditors were reconceived as clergymen doing religious confessionals. ­ ­Another factor is the tax exemption granted all religions in the United States and many other countries. Legal status as a religion would help give the movement the means to expand and prosper. The church’s attempt to gain the status of a religion has been controversial. Some critics claims that the church’s main goal is to make money and point to the excessive pressure put on members to donate money and buy literature and coursework to move up the Bridge. Other critical voices arise from the anti-cult movement, which considers the CoS a dangerous cult. The critique of CoS practices as dangerous has also been leveled by the American Medical Association and the Psychological Association, claiming that the techniques can result in psychoses. Yet another group of critics are people associated or formerly associated with the church in some way, either people whose family or friends are Scientologists or ex-members. The quest for recognition as a religion began in the early 1950s. In 1956 the first churches were granted tax-exemption status, and Hubbard urged all local Scientology organizations to register as churches before the tax year

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ended. Hubbard himself referred to this shift as the “religion angle,” and in policy letters he emphasized that this would be a “purely bureaucratic and ­financial” matter (Urban 2011: 160). By the end of the 1950s, however, tax-­ exempt status was withdrawn from most of the congregations except the CoS in California. All assets were thus moved to this church to avoid taxation, but then this church lost its tax-exempt status as well in 1967. The main reason for the withdrawal of tax-exempt state revolved around the issue of whether Scientology was regarded a religion. Its corporate structure primarily benefited private individuals such as Hubbard and his family (Urban 2011: 161–162). During the late 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the CoS cultivated its religious image. The Scientology cross acquired a more prominent position, and the “clergy” of Scientology, the auditors, were dressed in clerical collars. Pamphlets and books were published in which Scientology was ­described as a world religion with ancient roots, containing all of the common traits of a religion. Hubbard’s earlier critical remarks about religion were censored in Scientology literature. This “religionization” of the church was upsetting to many members who feared that the religion image would drive people away (Urban 2011: 162–164).

Secret Service and Legal Trials The aggressive way in which the CoS has tended to pursue its goals throughout its history can be traced back to the personality of Hubbard himself. For example, the concept of “fair game,” introduced by Hubbard, meant that all opponents of Scientology could be attacked with any means available. The doctrine was officially abandoned in the late 1960s, but critics claim that this strategy continues to be used today. The fair game approach has been applied to journalists, scholars, and other people who have openly criticized the church. One famous incident is the so-called “Operation Freak Out” campaign against journalist Paulette Cooper, who published the first book-length Scientology exposé. The goal was to get her committed to a mental institution or jailed, or at least get her to end her attacks on the church. This operation was conducted by the Guardian’s Office (GO), the intelligence service of the CoS, which operated in the 1960s and 1970s (Urban 2011: 111–112). The Guardian Office’s most spectacular campaign was “Operation Snow White” in the mid-1970s, which in the end led to the dissolution of the Guardian’s Office, put certain high-ranking Scientologists (among them Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue) in prison and drove Hubbard into hiding. The operation was a reaction to what Hubbard saw as a conspiracy against his church. The goal was to gather information on the intelligence the IRS had collected against the

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church. Scientologists infiltrated the IRS and stole over thirty thousand pages of IRS documents and even managed to bug the Chief Counsel Office of IRS. When they were caught, the CoS claimed that its rights as a religion were violated and that it was a “fascist attack” on the First Amendment right to religious freedom. After nine GO members were sentenced to jail for burglaries of US Government Offices, the CoS launched a war against its opponents. The war consisted of a landslide of litigation against anyone who opposed the CoS that lasted until its tax exemption as a religion was granted sixteen years later (Urban 2011: 167–170). In 1993, after countless legal trials, the CoS was finally granted tax-exempt status as a religious organization. Not only has this victory been highly profitable for the church in the United States, but this victory has also been used in CoS’s fight for religious recognition across the world. The US State Department even issued a report in 1993 on human rights which criticizes governments across the world in the matter of granting Scientologists their right to be recognized as a religion (Urban 2011: 173–175).

Accusations of Abuse In more recent years there have been numerous reports of physical and mental abuse inside the CoS. Perhaps most dramatic was the death of Lisa McPhearson, which critics claim was the result of mistreatment after she became mentally ill under the care of the CoS organization Flag Service. I have already mentioned the many lawsuits the church has launched against its critics. This can undoubtedly feel like harassment when a group as powerful as the CoS attacks someone. The nasty rumors many critics of Scientology find themselves surrounded by are another reason people feel harassed. Critics and defectors from Scientology, especially high-ranking members, can be declared Suppressive Persons (SPs), which means that family and friends still inside the church have to cut all ties to the person being “declared.” In Scientology all people are considered to be thetans who have been in existence for millions of years. This means that children are also considered to be “old souls” and thus in some respect can be treated as grownups. Within the Sea Org, children and grownups alike sign billion-year contracts and have to work for the good of the organization. Critics have called the activities of the Sea Org slave labor and even child labor, as the Sea Org members are paid very low wages and many Sea Org members are under 18. The Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) is another CoS institution which has received massive criticism. RPF grew out of the Sea Org and was established in 1974 as a place to discipline members who deviated from Sea Org norms. Reports have been

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made about long days filled with hard labor, little food, and bad living conditions. There have also been reports about physical abuse, and defectors have described how difficult it is to leave. Today many high-ranking Scientologists are believed to be in RPF custody. David Miscavige, the chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center and de facto leader of the CoS, has been accused of physically abusing his staff. His management of the church has also come under criticism as church members experience ever-increasing pressure to buy literature and make donations to new church buildings all over the world.

Defections Throughout its history, Scientology has had its share of defectors, for any number of different reasons, just like any other religion or organization. Some of these defectors still consider themselves Scientologists and continue to practice Scientology outside the CoS. The first wave of defections came about when Hubbard made the shift from Dianetics to Scientology. Most of these groups have been sued out of existence by the CoS, while others have evolved so much that it is hard to trace their origins in Scientology. In the early 1980s many high-ranking Scientologists left the church after a reorganization within the church in which the local Missions were forced to become less independent and turn more of their income over to the central church. Ron’s Org is the largest organization within the independent Scientology movement (often referred to as the Free Zone) and was established in 1984. The most recent wave of defections began in the early years of this century and has continued up until the present. These defections can be seen as resulting from the increasing pressure to buy literature and make donations at the expense of one’s individual progress up the Bridge, in addition to the controversial management style of David Miscavige. James Lewis (2012) has argued that the many defections of high-ranking Scientologists during this most recent period of mass exits are draining the organization of muchneeded human resources. He further suggests that within a few years the independent movement could outnumber the CoS if the CoS does not change its policies toward its members.

Conclusion The CoS is a very young religion, but throughout its short history it has attracted much attention, due to such diverse factors as its reciprocal love affair with Hollywood celebrities, harsh measures against its critics, its spectacular

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mythology, controversial social betterment programs, its eccentric founder and its controversial current leader. The case of the CoS reminds us of something that is easy to forget, namely that all religions are impacted by many different influences, from the temper of the times in which they appear, strong personalities, and the politics of the wider society. In this case, it is possible go back to the very beginning of the religion and analyze what the founder said and did, why certain choices were made, and how this affected the religion it is today. The processes that can so easily be detected in Scientology are processes that every religion experiences, but it is often forgotten that the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church was not set in stone in the year 33 a.d. It is, rather, an ongoing, never-ending process, and important changes may yet take place within the CoS.

Bibliography Bromley, David G., and Douglas E. Cowan. 2008. Cults and New Religions: A Brief History. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Lewis, James R. 2012. “Scientology: Up Stat, Down Stat.” In New Religious Movements, edited by Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein, 133–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Melton, J. Gordon. 2000. The Church of Scientology. Leumann, Torino: Elle Di Ci. Urban, Hugh B. 2011. The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wallis, Roy. 1977. The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology. New York: Columbia University Press. Whitehead, Harriet. 1987. Renunciation and Reformulation: A Study of Conversion in an American Sect. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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The Church Universal and Triumphant controversy, change, and continuance Jocelyn H. DeHaas

the church universal and triumphant has grown enormously and had its share of controversy in the last fifty-five years since it began as a modest publication, The Summit Lighthouse, and as it has expanded to become a worldwide religious movement. The church has weathered the death of its founder (Mark Prophet), problems with neighbors, conflicts over the environment, failed apocalyptic prophecy, suits against it by former members, and the death of its last leader (Elizabeth Clare Prophet) and with that the loss of direct access to new prophecies. In spite of these adversities, and thanks in large part to a change in the organization starting in 1998, the church is continuing on. It is difficult to say how many church followers there are for several reasons; first is the definition of membership. The Prophets have published more than sixty books, many of which are available in mainstream as well as New Age bookstores. Some people buy, read, and follow these teachings, but have no other direct contact with the church except to subscribe to the newsletters. In addition to the mass dissemination of their doctrine, there are different levels of membership within the church leading from the initiate, a Keeper of the Flame, to a member of the Inner Circle. Despite the difficulties in defining exactly who is a member, the church has a policy against providing such figures to researchers and other outsiders. In an interview with leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet, I was told that the church keeps no such records because the Bible recounts a story in which King David was punished for disobeying God’s request not to conduct a census.1 Lewis (1994: 20) estimates there were at that time 30,000 to 50,000 members worldwide.



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The Church Universal and Triumphant is a synchronistic religion based on esoteric teachings, reincarnation and karma, Christian theology, New Age teaching, Agni Yoga, and Eastern Philosophy. The roots of the church’s belief lie in the Theosophy Movement of Helena Petrovina Blavatsky and William Quan Judge, and Guy Ballard’s I AM Religious Activity that began in 1930s. Although the church acknowledges a relation to these previous religious activities, it considers itself to be separate from them—as expanding the earlier teachings and revealing new teachings from the Ascended Masters (Lewis 1994). Ballard had studied the Theosophy Society of Helena Petrovina ­Blavatsky and her protégé William Quan Judge; many of Ballard’s teachings aligned with theirs. In 1929, Guy Ballard, a mining engineer, claimed he had been contacted by Comte de Saint Germain who was an Ascended Master of the Great White Brotherhood. Saint Germain was called a Master of the Ancient Wisdom by Blavatsky with whom he was also said to have communicated. The Masters, and/or Brotherhood, was claimed by Blavatsky and Ballard to consist of men and women who had lived many lives and ascended to a higher plane of meaning/understanding. White refers not to skin color, but rather to the color of their auras. After his initial contact with Saint Germain, Guy Ballard began to teach the messages that he channeled from the members of the Great White Brotherhood. His wife, Edna, continued the I AM Religious Activity after his death in 1939 and continued to receive messages from Saint Germain and other Ascended Masters as well. The Ballards asserted that these Ascended Masters teachings focused on how people could become aware of their “I AM” essence. According to them, I AM comes from the Bible—when Moses asked God who he was, he said, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). An individual’s I AM self is reportedly the part of them that is connected to God. The goal was for the individual to ascend to divine realms at the end of his or her life. This is done, in part, through the reciting of decrees, or short invocations of the divine.2 These ideas were continued and elaborated by Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet for the Church Universal and Triumphant and its parent organization the Summit Lighthouse. The ideology of the Church Universal and Triumphant is founded on the belief that every individual is a spark of God, and through many lifetimes, he or she seeks to reunite with God (Church Universal and Triumphant 2013). This spark of God is an exact replica of God and is known as the I AM presence or the holy part of each person. Each person has free will, and his or her choices often result in karma that impairs the individual’s progression toward realizing his or her God-self. It teaches that humans are guided by a group of Ascended Masters who include, among others: El Morya, Jesus, Saint Germain,

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Lady Master Nada, Buddha, Mary, Lao Tze, Hercules, William Shakespeare, and K-17, Agent of Cosmic Secret Service. Many of these are the same Masters shared with Theosophy and the I AM Religious Activity, while others, such as K-17 are unique to the Church Universal and Triumphant. Church teachings say these Masters were people who were able to free themselves from the ­reincarnation cycle and ascend to unite with God. However, they have chosen to remain close to humanity to teach and guide it (Church Universal and ­Triumphant 2013). The Prophets taught and wrote much about Jesus. According to their teachings and books (especially The Lost Years of Jesus and The Lost Teachings of Jesus), much of the “truth” of Jesus’s teaching and lessons from his life were lost as the Christian church grew. Based on early Gnostic Christian writings and revelations from the Ascended Masters, they state that Jesus spent his years from 12 to 30 years of age, when the Bible contains no information on his activities, in India learning and teaching.3 Jesus is viewed by the church as a historical man who, rather than being the son of God, was a man who through his many incarnations and self-purification, realized his “True Self” or his “Christ Self” (E. C. Prophet 1988: 241–243). The church teaches that anyone can attain this oneness with God. To rid themselves of their negative karma from past lives and to reach their Christ Self, church members use the important tool of dynamic decrees, which is the use of prayers said rapidly and repeatedly. These decrees are positive affirmations, entreaties to angels for aid, or prayers for healing. Often the decrees start with “I am”—referring to the I AM Religious Activity of the Ballards in which a person is recognizing the God-self (the I AM) within him or herself. One of the most important decrees is the invocation of the violet flame, said by Helena Blavatsky to be able to transmute negative karma. Elizabeth Clare Prophet taught the violet flame was one of the most powerful forces to summon. She wrote, “The gift of the violet flame is an Aquarian-age dispensation. It’s the flame of freedom, forgiveness, and alchemy. And when this flame is invoked, it passes through the subconscious and, in conjunction with your right mindfulness, your love, your good works to God and man, the violet flame as the agency of the Holy Spirit consumes the records of the past” (E. C. Prophet 2013). The church also teaches that if or when people clear themselves of much of the negative karma that they have accumulated during multiple incarnations, they may ascend to be with God. This can be done through good deeds as well as through decrees. Elizabeth Clare Prophet, with the aid of the Ascended Masters, was said to be able to perceive how much negative karma a person had mitigated, and how far they had to go. She was also supposed to be able to read a person’s aura.



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Elizabeth Clare Prophet also elaborated on the idea of twin flames. According to her, one’s twin flame is another person who is the perfect love, the other half of the divine whole. Through many incarnations, these two often will find each other. Sometimes karma keeps them apart, but they will find each other either in their current life or a next one (E. C. Prophet 2013). Madam Blavatsky also wrote about twin flames in her book The Secret Doctrine, but it was not a concept on which she focused; similarly, the twin flames were mentioned by the Ballards, but not expanded upon. Elizabeth Clare and Mark Prophet are taught to have been twin flames. They incarnated together many times, including lives as Pharaoh Ikhnaton and Queen Nefertiti, Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, as well as Saint Francis of Assisi and St. Clair. A person might have some karma to work out with another person through being harmed by or harming him/her; in this case, the two will need to spend time together to work out their karmic debt. The two may incarnate as an opposite sex couple and get married. This is a karmic marriage rather than a twin flame marriage. Once the karmic debt is paid, the couple may divorce (E. C. Prophet 2013). Some of the teachings of the church were controversial, such as a belief in aliens. These extraterrestrials were not seen as benevolent, but as something from which humankind must protect itself. Elizabeth Clare Prophet indicated that the government was in collusion with the aliens whose goal was to create hybrids (Whitsel 2003: 104). In addition, the church teaches that the cosmos is filled with fallen angels and dangerous, dark spirits from which one must protect oneself. Membership in the Church Universal and Triumphant begins with membership in the Keepers of the Flame Fraternity. A Keeper of the Flame in good standing is eligible to go to the next step of Communicant. Some people take further steps to work for the church. There are classes for Communicants through the Summit University and at the quarterly conferences held by the church. Church members ideally attend three church services a week: a Wednesday evening service, a Saturday evening service, and a Sunday service. Members are also expected to perform daily prayers and decrees. Followers who lived and worked at the Royal Teton Ranch were expected to attend more services and perform their daily prayers and decrees with the group. Life for the staff that lived and worked on the Ranch was very restrictive. They worked long hours for low pay. In addition, they gave over control of many aspects of their lives to Elizabeth Clare Prophet. They were told who they could marry, what they could eat, what types of music to they could listen to, and what they could wear. In addition there were rules that limited to five minutes the time that unmarried men and women could spend together

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­ ithout permission. Ms. Prophet was said to even control how much sexual w activity, and what kind, in which a married couple could engage.4 One of the followers of the Bridge to Freedom—an offshoot of the I AM Religious Activity—was Mark Prophet. Prophet stated that he was visited by the Ascended Master El Morya when he was 18. He began to publish letters from the Ascended Masters in the 1950s, and in 1958 established his own ministry called The Summit Lighthouse. During the early years, The Summit Lighthouse was a modest venture. Prophet regularly published letters from the Ascended Masters called Pearls of Wisdom. Prophet moved his family to Washington, DC, and continued his publications and lectures. 5 In 1961 Elizabeth Clare Wulf (then her married name was Yrteberg) joined the church. At that time Wulf was a student at Boston University. Wulf first read The “I AM” Discourses by Ballard when she was 18. She had become a Christian Scientist at the age of 9, but was drawn to the I AM Religious Activity. When she attended a lecture given by Mark Prophet in 1961, she felt she had found what she was looking for spiritually (E. Prophet 2009: 38–39). Mark Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Wulf were married in 1963 after they had divorced their respective spouses. Elizabeth Clare Prophet became a coMessenger of the group after five years’ training with the Ascended Masters El Morya and Saint Germain (Whitsel 2003: 31). The Prophets moved the church from Washington, DC, to Fairfax, Virginia; then, in 1966, they moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Summit Lighthouse expanded as they continued to teach and publish the newsletter Pearls of Wisdom. The Prophets also were raising their four young children. Under Summit Lighthouse, they published books that were said to be dictated from the Ascended Masters. These included: Climb the Highest Mountain (series of ten books), Ashram Notes, and The Lost Years of Jesus. Mark Prophet passed away from a stroke in 1973 at 54 years of age. The church teaches that he ascended when he died and is now known as Ascended Master Lanello. Elizabeth Clare Prophet, who had been the co-Messenger, rose as the spiritual leader of the movement. She became known as Guru Ma by her followers, or affectionately by Mother. Ms. Prophet incorporated the church under the name The Church Universal and Triumphant in 1975 and it became the parent organization for the Summit Lighthouse Press and the Summit Lighthouse University (Whitsel 2003: 38). This began a period of expansion for the church. The church moved its headquarters in Colorado Springs to Pasadena, California, in 1976. In 1977 the church purchased a former estate turned monastery, that they called Camelot, near Malibu, California, in the Santa Monica Mountains. There they had conflicts with their neighbors and the government over zoning violations



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as they tried to expand the buildings on the property to accommodate the growing population of followers. In addition, by the early 1970s, a climate of criticism against New Religious Movements in the United States was popularizing beliefs in brainwashing, the dangers of these groups, and their “cultic” activities (Bromley and Shupe 1981). The mass suicides in 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana by members of the People’s Temple brought fears of New Religious Movements, including the Church Universal and Triumphant, to the fore. The fear of something perilous happening at the Church was increased by former members’ testimonies of brainwashing and of Ms. Prophet living an extravagant lifestyle (Los Angeles Times 1980). A former church member, Gregory Mull, was successful in his lawsuit against the church, accusing it of “fraud, extortion, and involuntary servitude” (Pool 1986). At this point Elizabeth Clare Prophet began to teach more about the need to be prepared for a future disaster. The apocalyptic prophecies had been started by Mark Prophet, who had a strong anti-communist attitude in his teachings and who taught both about the dangers in society and a future cataclysm (Whitsel 2003: 44). These motifs were also a part of Ballard’s I AM Religious Activity. Elizabeth Clare Prophet elaborated upon these ideas of coming disaster, and this seemed to lead to more problems with the public. In the church newsletter, Pearls of Wisdom, Prophet writes that followers needed to be prepared for a cataclysm, whether it came in the form of foreign invasion, economic collapse, famine, or some other calamity (DeHaas 1993: 27). The church formed several businesses that focused on a survivalist viewpoint. One was a private, for-profit business that dealt in gold and silver bullion called the Lanello Reserves (named for the Ascended Master that Mark Prophet was said to have become upon his death). Followers were encouraged to invest in gold and silver to protect themselves from a coming financial collapse (Whitsel 2003: 56–57). Another business in which the church was involved was a survival supply company. The church encouraged its members to prepare themselves by buying gold, dehydrated food, and other survival supplies. The church held seminars for its members to teach them what they needed and how to prepare themselves (E. Prophet 2009: 140–141). In light of the coming cataclysm, Elizabeth Clare Prophet began to look for a safer place for the church to locate. She claimed that on his deathbed, Mark Prophet had advised her to go to Montana (E. Prophet 2009). While she looked at several different properties, in 1981 the church bought the former Malcolm Forbes ranch that abutted Yellowstone Park. The purchase gave the church 12,000 acres of mostly undeveloped land in Paradise Valley which is in Park County. In later purchases of tracts of land, the church’s land was expanded to 24,000 acres. The location of the property, called the Royal Teton

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Ranch, was near the Teton Mountains in Wyoming, a sacred place in both I AM and Church Universal and Triumphant theology as it is the home of Saint Germain (Whitsel 2003: 47). The church formally transferred its headquarters to Montana in 1986. Almost from the beginning, the relations between the Church and its Montana neighbors were tense (King 1987). As early as 1981, Prophet toured Montana trying to assuage the fears of the locals (DeHaas 1993). When the headquarters was moved to Montana, increasing numbers of church followers moved to the area. By 1990 a Park County commissioner estimated that some 650 church members were living on the Royal Teton Ranch colony and another approximately 1,850 moving into the Paradise Valley, including the towns of Emigrant and Livingston and the two church-sponsored ­subdivisions: Glastonbury North and Glastonbury South (Bozeman Daily Chronicle 1990). The Livingston Enterprise published a story about a “hit list” the church had to silence detractors where church members prayed (decreed) to have bolts of blue lightning come down on the detractor (Shands 1987). Edward Francis, Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s fourth husband, explained that the decrees were not intended to cause death or harm to the detractor, but to purge him or her of the dark spirits that were causing the criticisms. This did little to assuage the worries of Montana locals. The summer of 1988 was a particularly dry one in Montana. There were many forest fires, including a 16,000 acre fire in Yellowstone Park near the northwest border shared with the church. To prevent the fire from burning church land, 250 members of the church gathered in a meadow known as the Heart of the Inner Retreat to decree against the approach of the fire. They kept this up for over 24 hours straight and, in the end, the fire burned near but did not cross the border onto church property. Tensions with locals escalated when they discovered the church had begun construction on bomb shelters. As mentioned before, Elizabeth Clare and Mark Prophet both talked about a vague coming catastrophe. However, in 1987, in one of her sessions when she was channeling (dictating from) Ascended Master El Moyra, the cataclysm was explicitly defined as a nuclear attack on the United States that it could not defend itself against. She gave a time for this: October of 1989 (E. Prophet 2009: 33). The church began constructing a large shelter near Mol Heron Creek that would hold 750 church members, supplies for seven years, and an ark of animals. This shelter was dubbed “Mark’s Ark” in honor of Mark Prophet. The two Glastonbury subdivisions also began constructing shelters, as did some individual residents of Glastonbury. Church members could purchase a space in these shelters for anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000. In addition, individual church members



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not living in the area were encouraged to build their own shelters. In 2004 journalist Hollenhorst interviewed Phillip Hoag, planner of many of the shelters, and reported that there are approximately thirty large community shelters in Paradise Valley (Hollenhorst 2004). As news of the shelters finally spread, the local residents were increasingly uncomfortable with the church and grew more suspicion of the group. The church’s “doomsday” label was firmly affixed after the arrest on weapons charges of Vernon Hamilton, the security chief for the church in Spokane, Washington. Hamilton was reportedly arrested with over $150,000 in arms and ammunition and $26,000 in cash and gold (Eng 1992). In addition, he had documents that indicated plans to arm 200 church members in order to protect themselves. Ed Francis, Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s fourth husband (whom she married after the death of Mark L. Prophet), and about eighteen other church members were quickly implicated in the weapons scheme. It became a federal crime when investigators learned they were using the name of a deceased church member. Although Ms. Prophet distanced herself from the incident by claiming it was carried out by a small group of church members not sanctioned by the church, many locals believed she was complicit in the arrangement because Francis was her husband6 (Whitsel 2003: 106–108). Investigators found that the church members had been buying guns since the early 1970s under the name Rocky Mountain Sportsmen’s Survival Club. Their purchases had included serious armaments such as assault weapons, armor piercing ammunition, and 50 caliber rifles. A 1973 letter from Martin Lassiter to the Cabinet of the church, including Elizabeth Clare Prophet, described his opinion on the church’s need to protect itself against “roving bands of individuals driven by hunger and fear.” He feared that the “dark ones” would try to destroy the church and its mission. The letter goes on to describe the small arsenal he had amassed for the church including high caliber rifles, hand guns, reloading supplies, crossbows, and other weapons totaling $61,007 (Lassiter 2011). The church had also purchased two armored personnel carriers which were construed by many people as being tanks.7 The church had gained national attention, including attention from the federal government. The IRS revoked the church’s tax exempt status in 1992 and sought $2.5 million dollars in back taxes and penalties. The investigation focused not only on the gun charges but also on business enterprises belonging to the church that were considered taxable (Whitsel 2003: 132–133). The church fought the IRS decision claiming that the government had unfairly targeted the organization because of negative media reports. Two years later an agreement was reached in which the tax-exempt status would be restored by the IRS if the church would liquidate some of its businesses and dispose of

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its weapons stockpiled at the shelters (Los Angeles Times 1994). The church complied and was reinstated as a tax-exempt organization. In 1990 members of the church came under literal gunfire when they were fired upon when leaving a New Year’s church service on the Ranch. No one was injured in the episode and no arrests were made. Many church members saw this as evidence, however, of the hostility toward them by the outside world and the urgent necessity that they protect themselves. In the spring of 1990, with what they believed was the apocalypse coming, church members from around the country came to Montana. Some sold their property, quit their jobs, and cashed out their bank accounts and retirement accounts (Harris 1990). Once in the Montana enclave, members entered the shelters to await the apocalypse. Erin Prophet, the daughter of Mark and ­Elizabeth Clare Prophet, wrote in her memoir about the experience of being in the shelter that night. She writes that many of the men were outside the shelter, ready to protect the church members. If the local or federal law enforcement had made any move against them, it is her opinion that they would have used their weaponry (E. Prophet 2009: 2–4). Sean Prophet, the eldest son of the Prophets, is quoted as saying, “It could have been horrible. We could have ended up like Waco. If somebody had made a mistake, or if the government had acted rashly. Anything like that, on either side” (Rannow 1998). Fortunately for all, no shots were fired that night. Nor did the prophesized nuclear attacks materialize. The church now faced the problem of a failed prophecy and confused believers. According to church president Gilbert Cleirbaut, an estimated 30 percent of members subsequently left the church (Rannow 1998). Elizabeth Clare Prophet claimed that she had never firmly predicted a nuclear holocaust, she had just warned of the possibility of such a cataclysm. The church reframed the event as both a test of people’s faithfulness (the unfaithful left), and as a testimony to the effectiveness of the members following the teachings of the Ascended Masters in changing the future of the world (Whitsel 2003: 119– 122). The time is referred to now as the “shelter cycle” by the church. The 1991 case of a young mother from Idaho, LaVerne Collins-Macchio, highlights the fear that many non-church members had about the church. LaVerne was involved with her local Church Universal and Triumphant group and was considering moving to Montana to be nearer to Elizabeth Clare Prophet. Collins-Macchio’s mother hired four deprogrammers who, posing as pizza delivery men, forcibly took Collins-Macchio, forced her into a van, and kept her for seven days while the men read Bible passages, sang religious songs at her, and told her that the beliefs of the church were wrong and distorted (Spokane Review 1993). At trial the court acquitted two of the four men;



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however, an appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court later overturned the acquittal and the men agreed to plead guilty to charges of second degree kidnapping. In addition to tensions due to the shelter cycle, from the moment of the church’s arrival in Montana, many of the tensions between the locals and the church have centered on environmental issues. In those early days in Paradise Valley, the church was accused of dumping raw sewage into the Yellowstone River. Although these claims have been unsubstantiated, other problems with environmental management have become a continuing rallying point for environmentalists and other people who are against the church. The area in which the Royal Teton Ranch encompasses is part of the intricate Yellowstone ecosystem. One of the first things the church did was to begin to pump waters from LaDuke Hot Spring to heat its buildings and swimming pool. The hot springs are part of the Mammoth Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park. Park officials were worried that the diversion of these hot spring waters would negatively impact the geysers in the park (Ness 1988). While the church maintained there would be no adverse effect on the geysers, park officials disagree. Environmentalists sued to stop the church’s plans and were able to stop the church from using the hot waters (Starrs and Wright 2005). When the church moved to Montana, it had plans to build a small, selfsufficient town on the property. The property, not being within city limits, was under lax building codes in sharp contrast to California where they were restricted from building as they desired. The leaders of the Church Universal and Triumphant planned for many homes, a church, food processing plants, schools, and a university.8 They began an ambitious program of construction and purchasing buildings. In 1985 Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, a religious colony centered on the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh, was quickly disassembled when senior aides were convicted of attempted murder and Rajneesh was deported. The Church Universal and Triumphant purchased and moved many of the buildings from the failed colony to their Royal Teton Ranch (Chandler 1987). In 1990, storage tanks for diesel and gasoline for the church’s fallout shelter leaked near, and into, Mol Heron Creek, an important spawning area for the cutthroat trout. Approximately 32,000 gallons leaked during a five-day period. The church moved quickly to clean up the damage. Although the church blamed the leak on faulty tanks and sued the manufacturers, many local residents did not believe them. They held that the church was trying to get the tanks in the ground before winter, and in their haste, buried the tanks in partially frozen ground. When the natural freezing and thawing occurred, the improperly installed tanks leaked (DeHaas 1993).

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An ongoing dispute between the church, on the one hand, and environmentalists and locals on the other is centered on animal migration. Because Yellowstone Park allows its animals to roam freely, and the Royal Teton Ranch borders the park, it is natural that animals wander from one area to the other. This is problematic as the bison from the park often carry brucellosis, a serious disease that is communicable to domesticated cattle. Shortly after they arrived in Montana, the church cooperated with the Fund for Animals to construct a jackleg fence to keep the bison in the park and away from the church’s cattle. The fence did not work, and the park and state officials began to shoot the bison (McMillion 2006). Bison are not the only animals that are impacted by the Royal Teton Ranch. It is also along winter grazing routes for elk and encompasses prime grizzly bears. To alleviate these problems, in 1999 the government purchased some of the church’s land and grazing rights. The contentious relations with neighbors increased after an incident in December 1993 when a church member was involved in a shootout with police. Mitchell Mandell was shot by police after a standoff that started with him confronting a tenant over non-payment of rent. Reportedly Mandell was agitated, chanting and waving a sword when police arrived. Later, he opened fire on police who then shot him. In 1997, Mandell’s family brought a suit against Elizabeth Clare Prophet as well as the police for damages of more than $5 million dollars. The suit alleged that after Mandell joined the church he was exposed to “psychological manipulation” so that he believed anything Prophet said. The psychological manipulation included peer pressure, sleep deprivation, fasting and sticking to a strictly controlled diet, chanting, and separation from his family. According to the lawsuit, Mandell believed that his sword made him “invincible and [he] could overcome the evil spirits that were manipulating the aggressors” (LaVelle 1997). The church attempted to detach itself from the incident by claiming that Mandell had non-church ties to antigovernment organizations, an out-of-court settlement with Mandell’s family was eventually reached (Whitsel 2003: 135–136). Financial difficulties caused by the loss of membership and court costs led the church to streamline its organization. The financial priorities shifted from creating a self-sustaining colony in Montana to the expansion of membership through worldwide teaching centers. The church also laid off many of the staff members. Thus, the population living on the Royal Teton Ranch dropped from about 600 to approximately 200. After the shelter cycle and the above-mentioned troubles, Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the Board of Directors of the church began a massive reorganization project in 1996. The spiritual leadership remained with Elizabeth



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Clare Prophet and a spiritual board of directors, but the executive or business leadership was transferred to a separate executive board of directors. Gilbert Cleirbaut was elected to this board’s presidency. The reorganization included a move to a corporate business model and a vow to become more open about church activities and finances. The church also began to cooperate more with conservationist groups, leading to land swap and sales agreements (Bozeman 1998). Cleirbaut sought to refocus the church followers’ attention away from the survivalism of the 1980s and early 1990s to what he termed “the true message” of the church: the church offering a path to peace and to union with God. Then church vice president Murray Steinman stated that a priority is to organize the church’s teachings to make them more accessible to everyone (McMillion 1998). At her New Year’s conference address in 1999, Elizabeth Clare Prophet announced that she was retiring due to health issues. In November 1998 she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The church announced that Elizabeth Clare Prophet continued to receive messages from the Ascended Masters during this time and was their only messenger. The church claimed she had named Murray Steinman, vice president of the church, as her guardian. This was disputed by the Prophet children. A compromise was reached where Steinman and daughter Erin Prophet became co-guardians. She lived outside of the public eye in Bozeman, Montana, until her death in 2009 at age 70. The Articles of Incorporation for the church include instructions for the Council of Elders to be responsible for recognizing the next messenger. Although she left no successor to the ability to receive messages from the Ascended Masters, the Church Universal and Triumphant continues on without her, translating, and disseminating her books and other writings. Because neither Elizabeth Clare Prophet nor the Elders chose another person as her successor, several people have claimed to be receiving messages from the Ascended Masters and have started their own religious movements. These include The Temple of the Presence, Shangra La Mission, and The Hearts Center. The Church Universal and Triumphant states that these are not true messengers. In 1995 former Church Universal and Triumphant minister Monroe Shearer and his wife started The Temple of the Presence. The Shearers claim to be the exclusive messengers for the Ascended Masters. The Temple of the Presence shares similarities with the Church Universal and Triumphant including belief in the Ascended Masters and in reincarnation. The Heart Center in Livingston, Montana, is run by David Christopher Lewis, another

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former Church Universal and Triumphant teacher. He also claims to receive messages from the Ascended Masters and teach the importance of connecting one’s higher self. It is worth noting there are a great many stories from people who have left the church, especially on the Internet. Many claim the Prophets ruled church member’s lives threatening loss of ascension for leaving and claim to have long-term negative effects from their time in the church. The testimonies of defectors can be informative giving witness to a side of a church to which outsiders are not privy; however, they may also be written with an agenda of bringing the most negative impression to the church. In conclusion, the Church Universal and Triumphant grew from a splinter group of the I AM Movement into a worldwide spiritual movement. Much of the church’s growth occurred during a difficult time for new religious movements in the United States. The public feared these movements as they read accounts of the murder and suicides of members of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown (1978), the excesses and crimes of the leaders of Rajneeshpuram (1985), the conflagration of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (1993), the murders and suicides around the Solar Temple (1994, 1995, 1997), and the suicides of the members of Heaven’s Gate (1997). The media sensationalized those incidents and cast more suspicion on other groups. For instance, a special edition of the CBS television program aired in 1993 titled “Standoff in Waco” drew parallels between the Branch Davidians and the Church Universal and Triumphant, leading the audience to wonder if the church would not be the site of the next Waco-type tragedy. Actions of the church, such as secrecy and shelter building, and actions of individual members, such as Francis with the guns purchased illegally did nothing to quash these ideas. Accusations against the church have also hurt its image. Despite both internal and public difficulties the church has endured. The question now is whether the church can survive without new messages from the ascended masters. Although predictions are always tenuous at best, it seems that the reorganization of the church in the late 1990s, as well as the retirement and death of Elizabeth Clare Prophet gave the church a necessary opportunity to transition to a focus and direction that will serve to keep the church alive for at least some time more. In addition, Elizabeth Clare Prophet left a vast collection of books, sermons, and recordings that the church administration is working to organize. These will also help the church to continue by bringing her message to interested parties in the future, and perhaps, is the first step toward the faith becoming a mainstream denomination.



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Notes 1. 2 Samuel 24. 2. The history of decreeing goes back to Emma Curtis Hopkins of the New Thought School. 3. Nicolas Notovich published Unknown Life of Jesus Christ in 1894 in which he tells of a document called the “Life of Saint Issa” that he reportedly was able to see on a visit to a monastery in northern India. His account was attacked by scholars and he eventually confessed to making up the account (McGetchin 2010: 133). Levi Dowling published Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, which tells the story of young Jesus traveling to India, Persia, Greece, and other locations. 4. This information comes from interviews conducted with current and former church members. 5. Ms. Prophet goes by her full name: Elizabeth Clare Prophet. When referring to the period before she married Mark Prophet, she is referred to as Elizabeth Clare Wulf—her married name of Yrteberg. Through her marriages after Mark Prophet, first to Randall Charles King and later to Edward Francis she retained the name of Prophet. 6. Francis served a short sentence for his part in the scheme. When he was released, he divorced Elizabeth Clare Prophet. 7. These vehicles were actually legal for people to own and were even legal to drive on streets. They were purchased from a business in New Jersey called “Tanks a Lot” giving the impression that they were tanks. 8. Some of these buildings were realized such as the church building, while overall the plans were downsized drastically with the changing fortunes of the organization.

Bibliography Bozeman Daily Chronicle. 1990. “CUT Member Files for Park County Seat.” Bozeman Daily Chronicle, March 30: 1, 8. Bozeman, John M. 1998. “Radical Reorganization in the Church Universal and Triumphant.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions1, no. 2: 293–300. Bromley, David G., and Anson Shupe. A1981. Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Chandler, Russell. 1987. “Rajneeshpuram—Nature Reclaims Commune of Paradise Long Lost.” Los Angeles Times, April 25. Church Universal and Triumphant. 2013. The Summit Lighthouse—Teachings of the Ascended Masters. http://tsl.org/2009/08/beliefs-and-teachings/. DeHaas, Jocelyn H. 1993. “The Mediation of Ideology and Public Image in the Church Universal and Triumphant.” In Church Universal and Triumphant in

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Scholarly Perspective, edited by James R. Lewis and Gordon Melton, 21–37. Stanford, CA: Center for Academic Publications. Eng, James. 1992. “Montana Church Member Spared Jail Time for Illegal Weapons Purchase.” Associated Press. December 2. Harris, Ron. 1990. “Sect Members Flock to Bomb Shelters, Ready for a Holocaust.” Los Angeles Times, March 14. Hollenhorst, John. 2004. “Underground Shelters Abound in Paradise Valley.” KSLTV5, March 2. King, Peter H. 1987. “Montanans Wary of Church’s Plans for Promised Land.” Los Angeles Times, January 25. Lassiter, Martin. 2011. A Memo from Martin Lassiter to the CUT Cabinet. http://tyob. info/public/cabinet_letter.php. LaVelle, Phillip J. 1997. “Disputes, Legal Woes Dog Church.” San Diego Union Tribune, November 12. Lewis, James R. 1994. “The Church Universal and Triumphant: Its Heritage and Thoughtworld.” In Church Universal and Triumphant in Scholarly Perspective, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton, 1–20. Stanford, CA: Center for Academic Publications. Los Angeles Times. 1980. “Guru Ma: Leader of a Multi–Million Dollar Church.” Los Angeles Times. February 11. ———. 1994. “Nation in Brief: Washington, DC: Religious Group Gets Tax Status Back.” Los Angeles Times, June 4. McGetchin, Douglas T. 2010. Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. McMillion, Scott. 1998. “CUT’s Theology Hasn’t Changed.” Bozeman Daily Chronicle, March 18. ———. 1999. “Former CUT Members Say They are the ‘Messengers.’” Bozeman Daily Chronicle. May 28. ———. 2006. “Solutions Hard to Find in Yellowstone Bison Controversy.” Bozeman Daily Chronicle, January 28. Ness, David. 1988. “The Protection of the Geothermal Resource of Yellowstone National Park—A Case Study.” Public Land and Resources Law Review9: 145–167. Pool, Bob. 1986. “Became Disenchanted with ‘Guru Ma’ Church: Architect Who Won Lawsuit Against Sect Dies.” New York Times, July 22. Prophet, Elizabeth Clare. 1988. The Lost Years of Jesus: Documentary Evidence of Jesus’ 17-Year Journey to the East. Livingston, MT: Summit University Press. ———. 2013. Soul Mates and Twin Flames: Questions and Answers with Elizabeth Clare Prophet. http://tsl.org/2009/08/soul-mates-and-twin-flames-q-a-with-elizabethclare-prophet/ Prophet, Erin. 2009. Prophet’s Daughter. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press.



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Rannow, Kathy. 1998. “CUT Heads into Second Life Cycle.” Bozeman Daily Chronicle, March 14. Shands, Tom. 1987. “CUT Chants Against Its Critics.” Livingston Enterprise, February 4. Spokane Review. 1993. “‘Deprogramming’ Trial Focuses on Church.” Spokane Review, April 7. Starrs, Paul F., and John B. Wright. 2005. “Utopia, Dystopia, and Sublime Apocalypse in Montana’s Church Universal and Triumphant.” Geographical Review, January. Whitsel, Bradley C. 2003. The Church Universal and Triumphant: Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Apocalyptic Movement. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

16

The Order of the Solar Temple Henrik Bogdan

the order of the Solar Temple (Ordre du Temple Solaire, or OTS) was one of the most controversial new religious movements of the twentieth century, and one of only a handful of NRMs that has resorted to the use of violence with a large-scale deadly outcome.1 The OTS is thus often placed alongside the Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, Aum Shinrikyo, and the Heaven’s Gate—the most well-known New Religious Movements that are connected to the use of violence (e.g., Lewis 2011). The first murders committed by the OTS occurred on September 30, 1994, when a 3-month-old baby (Christopher Emmanuel) was killed, together with his parents, who were ex-members of the group. A wooden stake had been driven through his heart, as the OTS leaders apparently believed that the baby was none other than the Antichrist. Four days later, on October 4, five persons were stabbed to death at the villa of the group’s leader, Joseph Di Mambro, and the villa was destroyed by fire. Another fire started at 1:00 a.m. on October 5 at an OTS center in Ferme des Rochettes, in the canton of Fribourg, Switzerland. The authorities later discovered twenty-three bodies, some of which had been shot, while others had been suffocated by plastic bags over their heads. A few hours later, three additional vacation chalets at Les Granges sur Salvan, in the canton of Valais, were set on fire, and another twenty-five bodies were found, including those of the leaders of the OTS, Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret. The fifty-three victims (not counting the three homicides committed on September 30) were divided into three different categories. The first category, consisting of fifteen members who were referred to as the “Awakened,” belonged to the inner circle of Di Mambro and his right-hand man, Luc Jouret. This inner group of members committed suicide by taking poison. The second category, the “Immortals,” who formed the majority of the dead members (thirty persons), were either shot or smothered. The eight



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members of the final category were labeled as “traitors” and were found murdered. In one of the four letters or “Testaments” that were sent out to sixty journalists, scholars, and government officials at the time of the fiery end of the OTS, it was explained that the authors of the testaments saw themselves as the “judges appointed by a Superior Order,” which in the esoteric worldview of the OTS meant that the so-called Hidden or Cosmic Masters had appointed them to this task: Those who have breached our Code of Honor are considered traitors, they have suffered and will suffer the punishment they deserve for the ages of the ages. All is accomplished according to the mandates of Immanent Justice. We hereby affirm that we are in truth, the judges appointed by a Superior Order. In view of the present irreversible situation, We, the Servants of the Rose + Croix, strongly reaffirm that we are not part of this world and that we are perfectly aware of the coordinates of our Origins and our Future. (Quoted in Lewis 2006: 178) These initial murder-suicides were followed over a year later, on December 16, 1995, by another group suicide in the southeast of France, near Grenoble, where members of the OTS from France and Switzerland had gathered in a forest. Most of the sixteen members that were found dead, had been drugged, shot to death, and then placed in a circle, while two remaining members had poured gasoline over the bodies, set them on fire, and then committed suicide. The violence did not end here, however. Fifteen months later, on the vernal equinox (March 20, 1997), five remaining members committed suicide in Quebec, Canada. In sum, the violence of the OTS led to the death of ­seventy-seven individuals in Canada, France, and Switzerland between September 30, 1994, and March 20, 1997. Naturally, the murder-suicides of the OTS raise a number of important questions about the relationship between religion and violence in general and new religious movements and violence in particular. Why did the leadership of the OTS turn to violence to solve the problems the group was facing? What sorts of problems did the group face? What caused many of the members to obey Di Mambro and Jouret and either murder their fellow members or commit suicide? What motivated the remaining members to commit suicide in 1995 and 1997 in order to follow the others? While the anti-cult movement and the press have usually provided simplified explanations (e.g., brainwashing) of the violence of the OTS, scholars have argued that one has to take into

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account the complexities of the case and to eschew single-factor theories. In this chapter I first give an overview of the OTS and then discuss a number of theories that have been put forward to explain the violence of the OTS.

The History, Teachings, and Organizational Structure of the OTS After having been a member of various esoteric and initiatic societies, including the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) in France between 1956 and the late 1960s, Joseph Di Mambro (b. 1924) founded in 1973 an esoteric group called the Centre for the Preparation of the New Age. This group would later assume a variety of names over the years, of which Order of the Solar Temple would become the most well-known name in the Englishspeaking world after the murder-suicides committed in 1994. After having established its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1978, the movement developed into a highly active organization with two distinctive sides. On the outside the activities centered on public lectures and workshops on topics common to the French-speaking esoteric and New Age scenes. The public appeal was enhanced by the recruitment of the Belgian homeopathic physician, Luc Jouret, who apparently was a charismatic speaker who easily caught the attention of his audience. Jouret would soon find himself in a leading position in the organization, second only to Di Mambro himself. These public lectures and workshops functioned as front organizations and recruiting grounds for the inner workings of the organization. On the inside, the organization was structured as a traditional esoteric initiatic society, with a hierarchical structure divided into various degrees through which the members progressed by undergoing secret rites of initiation. A common characteristic of many new religious movements is that their organizational structure is in more or less constant change, and in that respect the OTS was no exception. Introvigne has described the various layers of the organization as a “Chinese box” system (Introvigne 1995: 274). The outer shell consisted (at least for a period) of the semi-public Amenta Club (which later changed its name to Atlanta), in which Jouret, as mentioned, lectured on New Age topics such as homeopathy, naturopathy, and ecology. This outer shell worked as a recruiting ground for members to the inner and semi-secret Archédia Clubs, which were established in 1984. According to Introvigne, in this layer of the organization one could “find a definite ritual and an actual initiation ceremony, with a set of symbols taken from the Masonic-Templar efforts of Jacques Breyer” (Introvigne 1995: 274). The third and central layer of the organization, to which only the most trusted members of the Archédia Clubs were invited, was the secret



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International Order of Chivalry Solar Tradition (founded in 1984), which later changed its name to the Order of the Solar Temple. To further complicate matters, a fourth organization existed: the Golden Way Foundation (previously called La Pyramide), founded by Di Mambro, which served as the parent organization of the Amenta and Archédia clubs. The order was quite successful in French-speaking countries but failed to establish itself in the Englishspeaking world, particularly in the United States and Australia. In the ­English-speaking world the order was known by at least two names: the Order of the Solar Temple and the Hermetica Fraternitas Templi Universali. Compared to other Rosicrucian and Templar organizations, the OTS was a comparatively small organization. At its height in 1989 the order had a total of 442 members: 90 in Switzerland, 187 in France, 53 in Martinique, 16 in the United States, 86 in Canada, and 10 in Spain (Mayer 1996: 54). From the early 1990s the OTS went through several crises, which included the defection of several members, including members of the inner core, and even Di Mambro’s own son. Some of these former members would criticize the OTS in public and the movement was quickly branded as a cult by the media. Around the same the time Canadian authorities began to investigate the OTS and it was in particular charges of possession of illegal weapons that led the movement’s premises in Quebec to be raided in 1993. Clearly, the news coverage and the police investigations were interpreted by the leadership of the movement as not only a conspiracy against the OTS but also as symptomatic of the Kali Yuga, or dark age, in which society is increasingly becoming corrupt and degraded. In one of the so-called Testaments, the “To Lovers of Justice,” it was stated at the outset: Let the events which have entertained the Canadian press during the past several months permit everyone to recognize that everywhere in the world politicians, financiers and judicial officials have delighted in scorning democracy, squandering public resources, [and] manipulating, through the intermediary of a mass media hungry for scandals and sensationalist events, whole crowds of people which they themselves have rendered totally passive and unconscious. (Quoted in Lewis 2006: 183–184) The text then proceeds to list eleven points to illustrate how the media and the authorities had acted, with “cynicism and cowardice,” in this “scandal” (Lewis 2006: 186). The events, in combination with other factors (as will be discussed below), triggered a chain of events that led to the “transit” (i.e., the murder-suicides mentioned at the beginning of this chapter). The decision to make the transit was announced in one of Testaments:

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We, the servants of the Rose + Croix, considering the urgency of the present situation, affirm: • that we refuse to participate in systems set up by this decadent humanity; • that we have planned, in full state of consciousness, without any fanaticism, our transit which has nothing to do with suicide in the human sense of the term; • that according to a degree emanating from the Great White Lodge of Sirius, we have closed and voluntarily blown up all the sanctuaries of the Secret Lodges so that they will not be desecrated by impostors or by the ignorant; • that, from the Planes where we will work from now on and by a just law of magnetism, we will be in the position of calling back the last Servants capable of hearing this last message. (Lewis 2006: 178) As self-professed servants of the R + C (i.e., the Rosicrucian Order), the worldview of the OTS was firmly rooted in Western esotericism and, more specifically, in neo-Templarism, twentieth-century Rosicrucianism, and the New Age movement. Western esotericism is a scholarly construct that covers numerous currents that share a family resemblance and can be described as a form of holistic spirituality characterized by resistance to the dominance of either pure rationality or doctrinal faith. Instead, the importance of the individual effort to gain spiritual knowledge, or gnosis, is often emphasized. Furthermore, esoteric discourses are often connected to secrecy and rejected knowledge.2 This gnosis is not limited to intellectual or rational knowledge but is based on experiential knowledge that is unconstrained by the limits of the intellect. The path to gnosis is often believed to pass through self-­knowledge, since humankind is seen as a microcosm of the universe—the macrocosm. Human beings are created in the image of God and therefore reflect the whole of creation. The created universe is usually regarded as an emanation of the godhead, and since humans are perceived as a microcosm of the macrocosm, the esotericist often believes that the godhead can be found within people. The quest for ­self-knowledge is thus also a quest for the divine aspect of existence, just as knowledge about the godhead is of necessity knowledge about us. The holistic understanding of the universe to be found within Western esotericism is based on the idea that the entire universe is alive and traversed by a network of sympathies and antipathies that link everything in nature (Faivre 1994: 10). The network, which is often referred to as mystical links, constitutes the theoretical basis of esoteric “sciences” such as astrology and ritual magic.



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The Templar tradition that the OTS was part of is a modern interpretation and reconstruction of the medieval Knights Templar, founded early in the twelfth century as a military monastic order whose chief object was to protect pilgrims traveling in the Holy Land, Outremer. The Order of Knights Templar was disbanded by Philip IV, “the Fair,” of Bourbon (1268–1314) and Pope Clement V (1264–1314) in the first decade of the fourteenth century. In 1310 fifty-four Knights Templar were burned at the stake, and, according to Introvigne (1995: 279), the first fifty-three OTS deaths were intended to mimic these fiery deaths (a Swiss ex-member, Thierry Huguenin, managed to escape before being killed, thereby frustrating the plan to reach fifty-four deaths). According to a Masonic legend, the Templars survived in the highlands of Scotland and later reappeared in public as the Order of Freemasons. The first person to present this theory of continuation in public was Chevalier Michael Ramsay (1686–1743), a Scot who lived as an expatriate in Paris. In a famous oration given at a lodge in 1737 he claimed that the Order of Freemasonry was founded in the Holy Land by medieval crusaders. Although he did not explicitly identify the crusaders as Knights Templar, the connection was certainly made by the Freemasons. Soon enough, perhaps as early as 1737, Masonic Templar degrees appeared (Bogdan 2007: 95–100). During the second half of the eighteenth century, Templar degrees flourished on the Masonic scene, but soon the Masonic supremacy over the Templar degrees began to be questioned. If Freemasonry is nothing but the medieval Knights Templar in modern form, then why should Freemasonry be required at all if one wanted to be a modern Templar? As Massimo Introvigne (1995) has shown in great detail, the origins of independent neo-Templarism can be traced to BernardRaymond Fabré-Palaprat (1773–1838), who in 1805 proclaimed himself Grand Master of the Templar Order. During the 1950s, French esotericist Jacques Breyer and later Raymond Bernard revived the Templar tradition, and by 1980 more than one hundred rival Templar orders existed across a wide spectrum, ranging from social clubs to organizations that indulge in sexual magic (Introvigne 1995: 267–273). To the members of the OTS, death was a transition, something that Di Mambro had most likely picked up from his time in the AMORC, which was founded by H. Spencer Lewis (1883–1939) in 1915 and quickly became the largest Rosicrucian group in the world. According to one source, the AMORC may have as many as 250,000 members (Barrett 2001: 357). The highly eclectic teachings of the organization have a firm foundation in occultist spirituality. Death is seen as a transition in which the physical body (which is subject to change and decay) becomes separated from the soul. According to H. Spencer Lewis, “the soul of man, or the divine essence which animates

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him is the only part of man which is not subject to the law of change” (Lewis 1941: 238). The soul is thus eternal and not limited by the death of the physical body. These sentiments were later echoed in the rituals of the OTS (Bogdan 2006). The OTS was organized as a Masonic initiatory society with a strict hierarchy divided into different degrees. As in Craft Freemasonry, the OTS had three degrees: Frères du Parvis, Chevaliers de l’Alliance, and Frères des Temps Anciens (Brothers of the Court, Knights of the Alliance, and Brothers of the Former Times, respectively). It is unclear whether these three degrees made up the OTS or constituted an even more secret, inner group. At least one source suggests that in 1990 the Rule of the Solar Temple “described an order under the absolute authority of a secret inner group called the Synarchy of the Temple,” which consisted of the aforementioned three degrees (Hall and Schuyler 1997: 294). In order to attain these degrees, members had to undergo a rite of initiation for each level. The number and titles of the officiants in the initiation rituals varied, and it is thus impossible to give a clear picture of how the local “sanctuaries” were organized. In the “Dubbing of a Knight” ritual of the OTS, the following officiants were mentioned: priest, deacon, ritual master, “matre,” chaplain, sentinel, master of ceremonies, guardian, and escorts. The practice of rituals appears to have been the core activity of the OTS. These ceremonies seem to have been highly elaborate and suggestive and were often enhanced by the use of opera music, visual effects, and possibly hallucinogenic drugs (Palmer 1996: 306). The visual effects included simulated lightning, in which apparitions of the masters appeared and objects such as the Holy Grail materialized (Mayer 1999: 217). The rituals of the OTS can be divided into two categories: magical/mystical ceremonies and rites of initiation. The first category allegedly included sex magic practices (Introvigne 1995: 276), in which couples practiced “sperm drinking” (Palmer 1996: 311). The extent to which such practices actually occurred is, however, unclear. The second category of rituals, rites of initiation, appears to have been the central activity carried out by the OTS. According to Susan J. Palmer, the OTS constructed “special underground sanctuaries which were concealed behind false walls and reached by secret passages, requiring the ritual descent of 22 steps” (Palmer 1996: 311). She does not explain what the 22 steps refer to, but, given the esoteric context, they probably allude to the 22 paths on the kabbalistic Tree of Life. As discussed below, the surviving rituals of initiation of the OTS, provide us with invaluable information for the understanding of the ritualistic and symbolic interpretations of life and death and of the esoteric worldview of the movement.



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Explaining the Murder-Suicides Scholarly literature on violence and the new religious movements often center on the four well-known cases of the 1990s (OTS, Branch Davidians, Aum Shinrikyo, and Heaven’s Gate), as well as the Peoples Temple murder-suicides at Jonestown in 1978. Based on these cases, a number of theories have attempted to explain the use of violence. Although these cases differ in several significant aspects, the tendency has been to focus on the similarities in order to find common denominators that might explain the violent ends of these groups. Chief among these common denominators are a millennial/apocalyptic ideology, a high-demand organization, isolation from the surrounding ­society, and a charismatic leadership. The millennial/apocalyptic ideology denominator signifies an end-of-days expectation, which in the case of violent groups is connected to a fierce condemnation of the existing social order. The apocalyptic view of history is combined with a radically dualistic worldview, in which the group is identified with the “good” side, while society, understood in its widest sense, is identified with the “evil” side. Identification with the good side affords a group with a cosmic purpose in the sense that its members perceive themselves as chosen by God for a specific task. However, millennialism and apocalypticism are not restricted to violent new religious movements but are integrated parts of many Christian traditions. In order to differentiate between the millennialism of more violence-oriented groups and traditional millennialism, Catherine Wessinger distinguishes between progressive and catastrophic millennialism. Common to these two types is the belief in collective salvation that may be earthly and allegiance to a “principle whose authority is greater than the authority of civil law” (Wessinger 2000a: 8). Progressive millennialism is the belief that humans, under the guidance of divine agents, can progressively build the millennial kingdom in harmony and peace, while catastrophic millennialism presupposes that the millennial kingdom will be accomplished by an apocalyptic catastrophe orchestrated by God or some other superhuman agent. The catastrophe will destroy the current evil social order and lead to the subsequent salvation of the elect. According to Wessinger, the OTS adhered to a catastrophic millennialism expressed in New Age terminology. The basic premise of the New Age movement (in sensu stricto) is that humankind is about to make a spiritual evolutionary leap forward as we enter the Age of Aquarius. The transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius is generally considered in the New Age movement as a positive step and is often viewed as connected with a transition from a dualistic form of thought (as exemplified by ancient religions such as Christianity) to a monistic form of

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thought. However, the OTS took a highly pessimistic view of the evolution of consciousness and stressed that evolution “had reached its end on Earth.” Wessinger argues that as a result of internal weaknesses and the simultaneous experience of cultural opposition, the leaders of the OTS developed a pessimistic theology that justified a transit in order to escape the imminent cataclysm on earth (Wessinger 2000b: 223–224). Catastrophic millennialism is made evident in a number of passages of the so-called testaments, four short texts that were sent to various scholars and the media at the time of the ­suicide-murders in October 1994 with the aim of justifying the members’ last actions. One of these texts, “Transit to the Future,” states the following: The race is heading irreversibly toward its own destruction. All of nature is turning against those who have abused it, who have corrupted and desecrated it on every level. Man will pay heavy tribute for he remains no less than the only one responsible for it. Awaiting favorable conditions for a possible Return, we will not participate in the annihilation of the human kingdom, no more than we will allow our bodies to be dissolved by the alchemical slowness of Nature, because we don’t want to run the risk of their being soiled by madmen and maniacs. (Quoted in Lewis 2006: 183) Catastrophic millennialism is expressed even more forcefully in the second testament, titled “To All Those Who Can Still Understand the Voice of Wisdom . . . We Address This Last Message”: The current chaos leads man inescapably to face the failure of his Destiny. In the course of time, the cycles have followed one another in ­accordance with precise rhythms and laws. Different civilizations disappeared in the course of cataclysms that were destructive but regenerative, nonetheless none of these reached a level of decadence such as ours. Subjected to the devastating effects of individual and collective egocentricity, marked by a total ignorance of the Laws of the Spirit and Life, this civilization will no longer escape sudden self-destruction. (Quoted in Lewis 2006: 177) In seeking to understand the violence enacted by groups such as the OTS, the importance these groups attached to millennialism has been stressed by numerous authors (e.g., Robbins and Palmer 1997; Daniels 1999; Bromley and Melton 2002), as well as by Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate (2000a), and the edited collection Millennialism,



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Persecution, & Violence: Historical Cases (2000b). However, millennialism (or even catastrophic millennialism) is not seen as the sole reason that groups such as the OTS become violent. Some scholars have stressed the importance of internal weaknesses and the simultaneous experience of cultural opposition that the OTS exhibited prior to the transits. In a similar manner, Hall, Schuyler, and Trinh stress in Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan (2000) that focusing only on millennialism might lead one to overlook the importance of the “apocalyptic tensions between the established social order and countercultural religious movements” (Hall, Schuyler, and Trinh 2000: 3). In the case of the OTS, though, the external opposition did not pose any imminent threat, and it is argued instead that “the mystical apocalypse of deathly transcendence” was the primary impetus to the violence of the OTS (Hall, Schuyler, and Trinh 2000). Likewise, John Walliss argues in Apocalyptic Trajectories: Millenarianism and Violence in the Contemporary World (2004) that what triggered the leaders of the OTS to abandon their belief in survivalism and instead to adopt an apocalyptic worldview that emphasized the necessity of escaping from earth was the experience of cultural opposition— viewed as persecution—in combination with the crumbling of the charismatic authority of Di Mambro and Jouret, caused by various internal factors. Introvigne and Mayer, in line with the aforementioned scholars, argue that four factors might explain the OTS tragedy, namely, predisposing apocalyptic ideology, perception of external opposition, internal dissent and apostasy, and the crumbling charismatic authority of the leader (Introvigne and Mayer 2002: 178–183. See also Introvigne 1999 and 2000). There has, however, been some criticism of the primacy of millennialism/ apocalypticism in explaining the violent end of the OTS and of the fact that discussion has lumped together the murder-suicides of the OTS and Jonestown, the ATF/FBI raid on the Mount Carmel community, the Tokyo subway poison-gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo, and the Heaven’s Gate suicides. James R. Lewis has questioned the often-assumed connection between violent movements (e.g., OTS), millennialism, and external provocation in an essay with the telling title “The Solar Temple ‘Transits’: Beyond the Millennialist Hypothesis” (2005) and instead focused on internal factors, especially the failing health of the leader of the OTS, Di Mambro. Lewis argues that Di Mambro not only had a grandiose self-image (a common enough feature in many new religious movements) but also developed strategies of legitimacy that created an organization in which members had to be totally committed and in which dissenting views were not tolerated. Di Mambro was perceptive enough to realize that he lacked the necessary charisma to control the members directly, so he isolated himself from the majority of them, thereby

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creating an air of mystique and authority around himself. Direct dealings with the members on a day-to-day basis were transferred to the more charismatic and younger Luc Jouret, something that Di Mambro apparently later regretted as he grew increasingly paranoid. Furthermore, Di Mambro based his authority to a large extent on the fact that he was perceived as the sole source of communication with the “Cosmic Masters,” who guided the OTS. This would prove to be an unstable foundation for his authority when members began asking for proof that the Cosmic Masters existed. These factors led to the crumbling of Di Mambro’s charisma and legitimacy. More important, however, was Di Mambro’s failing health. Apparently, Di Mambro was suffering from kidney failure, incontinence, and severe diabetes and believed he also had cancer. According to Lewis, the failing health of the leader is an essential factor in our understanding of “suicide cults.” By distinguishing the three groups that imploded in suicide—Peoples Temple, the OTS, and Heaven’s Gate—from the other violent new religious movements such as Aum Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidians, Lewis stresses that these groups shared the fact that their leaders (Di Mambro, Marshall Applewhite, and Jim Jones) believed they were seriously ill or even dying—something that set them apart from Koresh and Asahara. Based on his analysis of Peoples Temple, the OTS, and Heaven’s Gate, Lewis presents a list of traits that are essential characteristics of a suicide group: 1. Absolute intolerance of dissenting views. 2. Members must be totally committed. 3. Exaggerated paranoia about external threats. 4. Leader isolates him/herself or the entire group from the nonbelieving world. 5. Leader’s health is failing—in a major way, not just a transitory sickness; or, alternately, the leader believes he or she is dying. 6.  There is no successor and no steps are being taken to provide a successor; or, alternately, succession plans have been frustrated. 7. The group is either stagnant or declining, with no realistic hopes for future expansion (Lewis 2005: 311) Peter Åkerbäck (2008), a Swedish historian of religions, agrees with Lewis that it is problematic to view violent new religious movements as constituting a particular category by themselves, since this approach emphasizes their similarities while downplaying their differences. While focusing on the suicide groups (the OTS, Peoples Temple, and Heaven’s Gate) in his discussion of previous research, as exemplified by John R. Hall, Catherine



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Wessinger, and John Walliss, Åkerbäck argues that even though these scholars emphasize the groups’ religious ideology—especially an apocalyptic and millenarian worldview—their research is problematic from two perspectives. First, their discussions of the movements’ apocalyptic worldviews are often too general in character. The analyses are superficial in the sense that they deal only with basic and general assumptions about apocalyptic and dualistic worldviews without actually discussing in detail the ideology of the movements themselves. Second, Hall, Wessinger, and Walliss attempt to understand the context of and reasons for the groups’ collective suicides and overlook their religious foundation. Åkerbäck emphasizes that, as a consequence, parts of their ideologies have been neglected, while others have been highlighted. He argues that previous scholars have emphasized the groups’ similarities while minimizing the differences in their ideologies. In fact, according to Åkerbäck, the reality is the converse: These groups are characterized not so much by their similarities as by the differences in their ideologies. Åkerbäck describes these differences as an ideology of opposition, a temporary ideology, and an ideology of metamorphosis. The first category, the ideology of opposition, describes the ideology of the Peoples Temple, in which apostolic socialism was seen as an antithesis to capitalism. The temporary ideology is connected to the OTS, whose ideology was based on the notion of a select few individuals who represented the temple, manifested throughout history, and assisted humankind in its spiritual evolution. After the mission had been accomplished, the group would withdraw and advance to a higher spiritual level. Åkerbäck uses the ideology of metamorphosis to denote the ideology of Heaven’s Gate, which centered on reaching a level above human. These three forms of ideology give witness to three highly different forms of worldview and soteriology, and thus one is forced to question the often-assumed similarities of these groups’ ideologies and their import to the understanding of the subsequent collective suicides. In “Death as Initiation: The Order of the Solar Temple and Rituals of Initiation” (2006), I have taken a somewhat different approach to the ­murder-suicides of the OTS. The role of the leaders of a “suicide cult” is undoubtedly of particular importance in trying to understand the motivating factors for extreme groups like the OTS. However, at the same time such a focus runs the risk of avoiding the question of what motivated the members to follow their leaders into death. Strategies of authority notwithstanding, suicide must appear as a plausible option for the members in order for them to carry out such a drastic action. In the case of the OTS, I have argued that a

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close reading of the rituals of initiation and the esoteric context of the movement can afford us with at least a partial key to understanding why the members (at least some of them) chose to join the transit. Through the rituals it is possible to understand the symbolic universe of the members and thus to place the transit within a frame of reference. The practice of rituals of initiation was central to the OTS, and members progressed higher up in the hierarchy by undergoing them. A central theme in these rituals is the notion of purification, which was connected with the element of fire. The idea of spiritual purification was also connected to death symbolism, which is a common theme in many Western rituals of initiation, such as the Master Mason degree of Freemasonry. However, in the case of OTS this was connected to a neo-gnostic dualism in which the material body was seen as less important than the spiritual self. The highly ritualistic circumstances of the murdersuicides and the fact that all traces of the OTS were to be erased by fire indicate that the murder-suicides were seen as a final ritual of initiation, a rite of passage that led from the profane world to the spiritually pure world of another planet. The following extract from one of the rituals of initiation (Ritual for the Donning of the Talar and the Cross) found at the OTS headquarters in Switzerland gives an idea of the content and symbolism of these rituals of initiation: Death is the same for us all. / It is how we leave Life that makes the difference. But always remember / that Death is an illusion. / In fact, / It is only another aspect of Life. At this Station, let me tell you / that you must also consider Life / as ephemeral as smoke passing by, / or a cloud drifting overhead, / and all its glory / is like a flower in the meadow / which unfolds in the morning and dies at eventide. In the world of illusions, / all must pass away. Everyone must one day confront / The great problem of Death / which alone gives meaning to Life. / You must be able to die to the profane world / in order to be born again to the Cosmic World. Therefore, let the quality and the wholeness of Life / compensate for its shortness. / You, wishing to be a Knight of the Temple, / Do not think of living according to Cosmic Good. And since nothing is more uncertain / than the hour of Death . . . / prepare yourself each day to be FREE / to leave this Earth / and to continue / on a parallel Invisible plane, / free from all human and terrestrial chains / which keep you prisoner of yourself. (Quoted in Bogdan 2006: 150)



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Concluding Remarks The murder-suicides of the OTS stand out as one of the very few examples of a Western esoteric group that turned violent. The ritual purification of the soul strived for in the initiatory system of the Order, neo-Templar notions of chivalry and self-sacrifice, and Rosicrucian beliefs in the importance of secret societies and Hidden Masters, in combination with New Age notions of an evolutionary leap forward for humankind as we enter the Age of Aquarius, formed the basic components of the esoteric worldview of the OTS. In contrast to other violent new religious movements—apart from Aum ­Shinrikyo— the members of the OTS were not marginalized members of society. On the contrary, the members of the OTS were generally well integrated into society, well connected politically and socially, and affluent. To sum up, the various hypotheses for the murder-suicides of the OTS often emphasize catastrophic millennialism in combination with factors such as perception of external opposition, internal dissent and apostasy, and the crumbling charismatic authority of the leader. Furthermore, the explanations of violence offered by scholars are often reached by a comparison with other violent new religious movements, especially the well-known cases from the 1990s (the Branch Davidians, Aum Shinrikyo, and Heaven’s Gate), together with the Peoples Temple murder-suicides at Jonestown in 1978. This comparative approach has, however, been criticized for its tendency to focus on the similarities of these different groups, while to a large extent ignoring their differences. A final criticism has involved the assumption that millennialism is essential to our understanding contemporary violent groups.

Notes 1. The chapter is to a large extent based on Bogdan 2006 and 2011. 2. Discussions concerning the definition of Western esotericism are ongoing. For the most significant recent works on the subject, see Hanegraaff 2012, 2013; von Stuckrad 2010.

Bibliography Åkerbäck, Peter. 2008. De obeständiga religionerna: Om kollektiva självmord och frälsning i Peoples Temple, Ordre du Temple Solaire, och Heaven’s Gate. Stockholm: Stockholms universitet. Barrett, David V. 2001. The New Believers: A Survey of Sects, Cults, and Alternative Religions. London: Cassell.

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Bogdan, Henrik. 2006. “Death as Initiation: The Order of the Solar Temple and Rituals of Initiation.” In The Order of the Solar Temple: The Temple of Death, edited by James R. Lewis, 133–153. London: Ashgate. ———. 2007. Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2011. “Explaining the Murder-Suicides of the Order of the Solar Temple: A Survey of Hypotheses.” In Violence and New Religious Movements, edited by James R. Lewis, 133–145. New York: Oxford University Press. Bromley, David G., and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion, and Violence. 2002. New York: Cambridge University Press. Daniels, Ted, ed. 1999. A Doomsday Reader: Prophets, Predictors, and Hucksters of Salvation. New York: New York University Press. Faivre, Antoine. Access to Western Esotericism. 1994. Albany: State University of New York Press. Hall, John R., and Philip Schuyler. 1997. “The Mystical Apocalypse of the Solar Temple.” In Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements, edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer, 285–311. New York: Routledge. Hall, John R., and Sylvaine Trinh. 2000. Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan. New York: Routledge. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 2012. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2013. Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum. Introvigne, Massimo. 1995. “Ordeal by Fire: The Tragedy of the Solar Temple.” Religion 25: 267–283. ———. 1999. “Unde dérive vers l’homicide et le suicide l’Ordre du Temple Solaire.” In Sectes et démocratie, edited by Françoise Champion and Martine Cohen, 300–313. Paris: Editions du Seuil. ———. 2000. “The Magic of Death: The Suicides of the Solar Temple.” In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger, 138–157. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Introvigne, Massimo, and Jean-François Mayer. 2002. “Occult Masters and the Temple of Doom: The Fiery End of the Solar Temple.” In Cults, Religion, and Violence, edited by David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, 170–188. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, James R. 2005. “The Solar Temple ‘Transits’: Beyond the Millennialist Hypothesis.” In Controversial New Religions, edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, 295–317. New York: Oxford University Press. ———, ed. 2006. The Order of the Solar Temple: The Temple of Death. London: Ashgate. Lewis, Spencer H. [1929] 1941. Rosicrucian Questions and Answers with Complete History of the Rosicrucian Order. San Jose, CA: Rosicrucian Press.



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Mayer, Jean-François. 1996. Les Mythes du Temple Solaire. Geneva: Georg Editeur. ———. 1999. “Les Chevaliers de l’Apocalypse: L’Ordre du Temple Solaire et ses adeptes.” In Sectes et démocratie, edited by Françoise Champion and Martine Cohen, 205–223. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Palmer, Susan J. 1996. “Purity and Danger in the Solar Temple.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 1, no. 3: 303–318. Robbins, Thomas, and Susan J. Palmer, eds. 1997. Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements. New York: Routledge. von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2010. Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Walliss, John. 2004. Apocalyptic Trajectories: Millenarianism and Violence in the Contemporary World. New York: Lang. Wessinger, Catherine. 2000a. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges. ———, ed. 2000b. Millennialism, Persecution, & Violence: Historical Cases. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

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there are obvious reasons for the controversial status of many of the religions covered in this book. The similar fate of New Age spiritualities is less immediately understandable. New Age spiritualities can be linked to neither mass suicides nor terror, and take as their premise many of the basic ideas of late modern Western culture—individual autonomy, women’s liberation, and the importance of self-realization. Why, then, so much fuss, ridicule, and ­contempt? As an attempt to shed light upon such puzzles, this chapter discusses the controversial status of New Age spiritualities in scholarly circles, in Christian contexts, and in secular news discourse. What Linda Woodhead (2010) has referred to as the “inadequacy approach” appears to be common to the first and last of these perspectives, with New Age placed outside or near the borders of “religion,” as not quite or properly religious. In contrast to such lack of acceptance as “religion,” evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have chosen a bad—if not demonic—religious approach, with extreme versions positioning New Age under the leadership of Lucifer himself. This chapter begins with a short historical sketch of what was referred to in the 1970s as the New Age movement, followed by an overview of its main ideas, beliefs, practices and organizational traits, and scholarly controversies regarding its present status. The second part of the chapter discusses perceptions of New Age in Christian literature, on the one hand, and the secular news media, on the other. The former constitutes a Christian genre, with more or less universal relevance in Western societies. Whether the same goes for secular news media approaches is more questionable, partly due to different constructions of “the secular” as opposed to “the religious,” and concomitant variations in regard to the position of religion in the public sphere. Examples in this chapter will be drawn from the Norwegian media context



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during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Although not representative of broader tendencies, these are symptomatic as to some of the broader issues at stake.

New Age—Scholarly Perspectives and Controversies The Dutch historian of esotericism Wouter Hanegraaff has suggested a twofold definition of New Age. In a restricted sense (sensu stricto), New Age can be defined as a millenarian movement, oriented toward the imminent coming of a New Age, the Age of Aquarius (Hanegraaff 1996). Emerging first in England during the 1960s, New Age sensu stricto was heavily influenced by Theosophical and UFO ideas and practices. During the late 1970s, this specifically English current was swallowed up in the broader sea of New Age in a more general sense, referred to by Hanegraaff (1996: 47) as New Age sensu lato. Initially becoming visible in California during the 1970s, this broader version was rooted in a mixture of American New Thought, metaphysical movements, and countercultural currents. In the words of Hanegraaff (1996: 522), the cultic milieu1 became “conscious of itself” during the late 1970s, implying that a sense of a “we” emerged, based upon perceived connections between various contemporary currents and phenomena.2 By the 1980s, “New Age” had disappeared as a self-designation, partly as a result of derogatory connotations and partly due to a fading of millenarian visions. Additionally, the countercultural component was gradually toned down. In contrast to the dropouts of the 1970s, dedicated New Agers of the 1980s and 1990s increasingly turned to mainstream culture. The gradual establishment of a New Age economic market from the 1980s was probably crucial to this development (see Redden 2005). The status of New Age as a contested term in scholarly circles can partly be connected to these developments. A major issue is whether there is still a New Age movement, in any meaningful sense of the term, and, if so, whether it should still be referred to as “New Age.” Critics have claimed that there is no common ground between the various ideas and practices referred to by scholars as “New Age,” that its ideas and practices are superficial, and that a lack of doctrines, overall structures, and institutions make survival over time unlikely. In the words of Steve Bruce, perhaps the most influential voice of this perspective: [The New Age] elicits only slight commitment and little agreement about detail. It thus makes a shared life unlikely. It has little social impact. It has little effect even on its adherents. It does not drive its

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believers to evangelise. It is vulnerable to being diluted and trivialized . . . eclectic to an unprecedented degree and dominated by the principle that the sovereign consumer will decide what to believe . . . a low-­ salience world of pick-and-mix-religion. (Bruce 2002: 91, 105, cited in Woodhead 2010: 33) Sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead (2010) has referred to a “puzzling disjuncture” between evaluations of New Age based on empirical studies, on the one hand, and those which are not, on the other. What she coins “the inadequacy approach” is presented as an explanation for the latter version, along with the “enduring presence of a submerged norm of ‘real religion’” (ibid: 31). In short: New Age does not look like the Western churches of recent history and is therefore considered as something else—not religion. A different moral vocabulary is, similarly, perceived as tantamount to lack of morality; “because it is not like a church it must be unethical” (2010: 44). New Age, to quote the standard register of scholarly critics, is “more of an amusement than a religion,” an “unholy alliance with the worst excesses of capitalism and ­ ­consumerism” (ibid:34), selfish and narcissistic, a childish dabbling in pseudo-­ scientific activities and techniques, and—as a logical conclusion to such ­qualities—“socially corrosive.” What is really at stake, Woodhead concludes: is not so much a lack of moral horizons, as differing moral horizons which some sociologists find incompatible with their own. . . . There is a real, and important, debate about the nature of the good life in a good society going on here. The question is whether it is appropriate to conduct it under the guise of social-scientific neutrality. (2010: 44, 45) Supporters of “New Age” as an etic category agree upon the diversity of the field, but insist upon a minimal core and certain central and overarching traits. New Age can be connected to a seemingly endless variety of techniques and practices, but these are shaped and structured by a set of taken for granted “facts” and ideas. In short this is a religion centered on the self and its potential for growth; on karma and reincarnation as vehicles of trans-incarnational development; on holistic visions and a monistic view of “energies” as the “stuff” of the universe; and on a perennialist interest in religious traditions. We are all gods in the making, according to this perspective; there is a deeper (or higher) self in the individual, a divine source for the individual seeker to draw upon or realize, in this life and in incarnations to come. Each one has a unique role to play and a unique path to tred in order to evolve spiritually and develop their potential. For this to be realized one must be true to one’s self



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and take seriously one’s own experiences, intuitions and emotions (see Heelas 1996; Hammer 2001; Aupers 2005; Aupers and Houtman 2010b). What Hammer has termed an “individualistic imperative” is vital to this level of New Age facts and premises, with “I did it my way”—to quote the title of one of Hammer’s contributions—as the only legitimate source of decisionmaking (Hammer 2010; see also Heelas and Woodhead 2005). Perceptions of New Age as a thoroughly private and eclectic form of religiosity seems to be based on this emic level of values and orientations—that is, on a confusion of an individualistic ideology with facts on the ground. New Agers, more specifically, are socialized into this particular way of thinking, feeling, and acting. They learn to search within, to trust themselves, and to distrust formal institutions. They learn where to look and how to interpret signs and signals. They learn to be open to the religious traditions of the world and, at the same time, to read critically—in very particular forms of the term—such sources of wisdom. Estimates of the size of New Age spiritualities vary according to the differences discussed so far, ranging from a passing fad involving few people and with little effect on societal level, to a spiritual revolution with fundamental implications for the religious landscape of Western societies. Steve Bruce’s God is Dead (2002) belongs at one extreme of this scale; Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas’s The Spiritual Revolution (2005)3 can be placed at the other, along with titles such as The Re-enchantment of the West (Partridge 2004, 2005), and The Re-enchantment of Culture (Kulturens refortrylling, Gilhus and Mikaelsson 1998).4 Common to these latter studies is a distinction between New Age in the form of spiritual seekers and New Age as a phenomenon that increasingly penetrates Western mainstream culture. In the words of Anneke Van Otterloo, Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman, “New Age spirituality nowadays spills over to various realms in society, such as the media and popular culture (Partridge, 2004; Possamai, 2005), marketing and advertisement (Frank, 1998) and even ‘rational’ business organizations and management (e.g., Grant et al., 2004; Heelas, 1996)” (Otterlo, Aupers and Houtman 2012:240).5 Health and well-being is another—perhaps the largest of such realms (Partridge 2005; Gilhus 2012; Ahlin 2007). We are not, with these various spill-overs, necessarily dealing with religious convictions. One could, through an elaboration of Hanegraaff’s distinction between sensu stricto and New Age senso latu, distinguish between New Age in the restricted sense as involving dedicated individuals who consciously strive for spiritual goals and take for granted the central “facts” of New Age religiosity. New Age sensu lato could then refer to broader currents; customers of New Age

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products who are not necessarily interested in or even aware of the spiritual aspects of New Age. Studies of holistic health and healing indicate, for instance, that particular groups (such as the terminally or chronically ill) are likely to consider holistic healing as a last resort, rather than as a spiritual opportunity. The popularity of New Age coaching and team-building techniques in management, similarly, are not necessarily connected to spiritual goals or convictions. A large number of New Age “products” are offered as solutions to “secular” problems and challenges, or as means to secular goals, ambitions, or interests: entertainment, health, fitness, the strengthening of job motivations, and so on, with the spiritual dimension more or less optional—for the customer to decide to build upon or to ignore. In other words, these are transactions which crisscross established boundaries between the religious and the secular. Studies reveal, for instance, that alternative therapists are likely to be New Agers, and that the majority of therapies are based on New Age premises (Ahlin 2007). Clients are not necessarily interested in, or are even aware of such premises. They nevertheless contribute to the massive reach of New Age products, in mainstream culture, as well as within religious landscapes.

Christian Perspectives on New Age Spiritualities The lack of a clearly defined organization may to some extent account for Christian approaches to New Age spiritualities. In the words of Lisbeth Mikaelsson, “those who fight for the purity and unique position of Christianity, face an easier task when religious traditions are clearly demarcated from each other” (Mikaelsson 2008: 226, my translation). The gnostic groups of antiquity constitute one such example of diffuse enemies. New Age is the primary example in late modernity. As with the Gnostics, moreover, New Age is at least partly an internal enemy. What Gilhus and Mikaelsson (1998) have referred to as “multi-religious actors” is probably a substantial group in Western countries, many combining New Age and membership in a mainstream church. They are, to use a term coined by Daren Kemp (2003) in a study of New Age in the Anglican Church of England, “Christaquarians.” A Christian anti–New Age genre can be traced back to the mid-1980s (Lewis, cited in Saliba 1999: 68). Since then, thousands of books, articles, and journals have been published, with attacks ranging from literal demonization to concerns for the well-being of society at large, including many of the concerns also raised in academic circles. By far the majority of such literature stems from evangelical or fundamentalist sources (Saliba 1999: 39). They agree upon the status of New Age as an important religious development rather than a superficial fad, and urge Christians to beware and take it seriously. They tend,



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moreover, to draw upon what Saliba (1999: 51) refers to as five distinct, albeit overlapping theories. First, there is the “revival of religion theory,” with New Age perceived as the revival of older occult traditions, dating back to at least the time of the Gnostics. Second, “the conspiracy theory” holds that grand scale conspiracies are involved, including a plan to take over the earth. Third, “the Satanic theory” implies that New Age as such can be considered a form of Satanism. Fourth, “the infiltration theory” claims that its members and ideas are secretly infiltrating Christian circles. Fifth and finally, “the apocalyptic theory” sees New Age as a sign of the End—the apocalyptic climax forecast in the Bible.6 Not all evangelists and fundamentalists would agree to these theories. Also, mainline Protestant responses have been more varied, ranging from heavy borrowing from fundamentalist/evangelical approaches, to acceptance of selected New Age ideals and practices (Saliba 1999: 89). Responses from Norwegian Christians and the Church of Norway exemplify such diversity and indicate the global reach of Christian anti–New Age literature. International bestsellers like Constance. E. Cumbey’s The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow (1983) were translated to Norwegian as early as 1984 and resulted—according to contemporary critics—in a media panic and hysteria similar to that of the US fear of communists during the 1950s (Aadnanes 2008: 285). The high media profile of the priest and New Ager Helge Hognestad did not help. Hognestad was more or less forced to leave his position as a state church priest in 1984 and in 1989 asked to be freed from his ordination vows. He refused, however, to denounce his membership in the church. Perceptions of New Age among Norwegian church members appear to on the same scale as that of US Christians. The state church leadership has chosen a more moderate approach, and seems to have grown milder across the first thirty years of the Norwegian New Age. Indicative of this tendency, the annual church meeting in 1999 made New Age spiritualities its main topic. An official report, published in conjunction with the meeting, highlights dialogue and tolerance as essential to what the report title refers to as Kirken i møte med den åndelige lengsel i vår tid (The church approaching the spiritual longing in our time) (Den norske kirke 1999). The dialog referred to is clearly structured by missionary goals—of calling lost seekers home to God—but chooses an inclusive approach, rather than the protection of boundaries typical of evangelical and fundamentalist milieus.

New Age in the Norwegian Press Ester Utsi is a Sami woman living in Tana, Finnmark, a sparsely populated area of the northernmost Norwegian county. Today in her sixties, Utsi in 1997

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resigned from her job as head of the local social department in Finnmark county to set up Polmakmoen guesthouse, a venue designed to meet the needs of spiritual seekers, tourists, and companies in search of facilities for team-building and an inspirational break. Guests can choose between various products typical of the New Age scene, including crystal therapies, individual healing sessions and self-development courses, and a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the reindeer-herding tracks of her ancestors, now equipped with ritual ingredients along a path referred to in the language of chakras. This, then, is a fairly typical New Age business. However, in sharp contrast to New Age colleagues further south, Utsi has been positively depicted in the news media, as a proud and creative entrepreneur, able and willing to draw upon the traditions of her people. The resulting offerings, including crystals and self-development courses, are regularly framed in terms of the (assumed) spiritual traditions of the Sami and indigenous people in general, and accordingly as authentic and traditional—as ancient wisdom, and part of the postcolonial reclaiming of the Sami indigenous religion (see Fonneland and Kraft 2013). Indicative of broader tendencies regarding representations of religion in the Norwegian news media, this highly positive evaluation of what from a religious studies point of view qualifies as New Age, differs sharply from that which the media terms “New Age.” In line with tendencies in the Western world more generally, “New Age” is a derogatory term in Norwegian news media, positioned at the periphery of “religion,” and usually framed as either scandal or curiosa. Media treatment of the so-called angel school of Norwegian princess Märtha Louise is a particularly revealing example of such tendencies. Se og hør—Norway’s largest celebrity magazine—on July 24, 2007, dedicated its front page to the story of princess Märtha Louise and “Astarte Education,” a three-year educational enterprise focusing on healing and readings, which more or less immediately become known as “the angel school.” Framed from the start as a national scandal, the case ended as one of the most profiled media stories of the year, and probably the most profiled New Age story in Norwegian media history. There are obvious reasons for the media interest in Märtha Louise’s angel school. As a princess, Märtha Louise is not only an A-level celebrity, she is also a symbol of Norwegian-ness, on the one hand, and of bonds between Christianity and the royal institution, on the other. Her father, King Harald, is formally head of the Church of Norway, and along with his family represents the church—both symbolically and in practice. The king is also a statutory Lutheran Protestant, according to the so-called “confession duty”



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(bekjennelsesplikt) of the Norwegian constitution. Studies have suggested that these formal arrangements mean little to Norwegians, and that Christianity is marginal to national identity (Brekke 2010: 58). Reactions to the angel school would seem to point in a different direction, both with regard to the religious status of the royal family and with regard to the relationship between Christianity and Norwegian-ness. News media coverage of the angel school between 2007 and 2013 can be divided into two broad tendencies,7 based on “secular” and Christian perspectives, respectively. The former, represented by the secular media professionals and skeptics of various sorts, framed the angel school as bad religion, pseudoreligion, or both, and, in addition—particularly during the early phase—as shockingly strange. Journalists seemed genuinely surprised at the very existence of belief in angels, and more or less agreed with evaluations of Märtha Louise as naïve, silly, and royally detached from reality, but also—sometimes in the same feature—as a cynical and calculating entrepreneur, with the angel project as a cover for economic goals and easy money-making. Additionally, a wide range of concerns have been raised with respect to society at large, to the royal institution, and to so-called “vulnerable groups.” What the media termed “divination-addictions” (spådomsavhengighet) is an example of the latter category. Märtha Louise’s fitness as a mother (she has three children) was also discussed, along with her mental state—whether she is mentally ill and needs professional help to deal with her delusions. Contributions by Christians were at the outset dominated by conservative and fundamentalist critics, a group which is otherwise rather absent in the Norwegian news media. Partly as a result of the way in which the media approaches such controversies, journalists gave particular attention to the extremes from both the secular and Christian camps. The latter drew on the established vocabulary discussed by Saliba, suggesting that Märtha Louise was under the spell of the devil himself, possibly unknowingly, and that the name of the angel school—Astarte Education—was in itself a provocation to the church, and a sign of the unholy alliances entered into. Church leaders were more or less absent during the early phase of the scandal. Few of the bishops commented officially on the angel school, and those who did chose vague and indirect formulations. Such caution may be connected with the above-mentioned strategy of tolerance toward “the spiritual longings in our time,” but was probably also shaped by the ambivalent status of angels in the church. Angels are completely absent from the theology which for decades has dominated Norwegian theological institutions, and appear—on the official level—as more or less nonexistent. They are at the same time everywhere in Christian culture—from bedtime lullabies to psalms

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and decorations, and they seem to be increasingly popular, even among mainline Christians. Faced with this highly complex situation, silence must have appeared the sensible choice on the part of church officials. Interestingly, a statement by the princess concerning spiritism proved the last straw, in liberal circles and to the bishops. During a press conference in September 2010, Märtha Louise claimed that “it is also possible to speak to the dead,” adding that this was not part of the educational program of the angel school. The statement was followed by a new shock-wave, now with the bishops on board with unequivocal condemnation—with criticism escalating to a higher level, related to challenges of a more serious and morally reprehensible kind. Liberal Christians voiced fear that the finiteness of death would no longer be accepted, and that this would react negatively upon processes of grief and mourning. There were also concerns regarding a possible increase in suicides, and regarding respect for death and the dead; the General Secretary of The Norwegian Missionary Society claimed, for instance, that spiritism is “disrespectful to the dead” (Lundervold 2010). Theological positions on death may to some extent explain the unified condemnation from the church; Christians agree not to communicate with the dead—regardless of whether this is considered an option or not. Additionally, death is positioned as a more or less sovereign Christian issue and territory; at a time when many of its services have lost hold, most Norwegians continue to let the church bury their dead.8 From a secular perspective, the above-mentioned hierarchy of more or less worthy religions may have informed perceptions. The Christian funeral ritual can draw upon the dignity of its surroundings—the venerable materiality of church buildings and the ancient traditions that enfold it. New Age spiritualities lack corresponding frames. From a secular perspective it is, moreover, a silly religion, and accordingly not appropriate in the face of death, dying, and existential depths.

Concluding Comments Allegedly, the worst thing you could say about a religion in antiquity was that it was new (Warmind 1989). Youth, more generally, has rarely contributed positively to the status of religions. Points of attack and concern seem, moreover, to be more or less constant. Morten Warmind has suggested five concerns as typical of approaches to new religions in general, at least since the time of antiquity (Warmind 1989). New religions are often perceived as sexually problematic—too strict or too loose. They are as a rule regarded as ­harmful—to the involved individuals and their social environment, and they



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are almost always perceived as ridiculous. The angel school scores on all of these criteria, except for the sexual one. Although different in tone and content, the New Age critics referred to in this chapter can all be connected to this older tradition of suspicion and moral condemnation. The evangelical and fundamentalist version of such approaches is understandable in light of the spiritual war framework typical of these movements. Moral evaluations of religion are not, however, normally a part of the scholarly enterprise; nor is the secular media normally in the business of preaching. What Woodhead terms “the inadequacy approach” helps to explain these puzzles. New Age does not look like the Western churches of the past and is therefore considered inadequate—morally, and in terms of its very status as “religion”—as not a proper religion or not a religion at all. “Exotic freshness” may contribute to the same impression. New religions lack the protective shield provided by familiar ideas, symbols, and practices. Finally, the time scale appears to be important. To be rooted in primordial traditions and revealed truths is, Bruce Lincoln has argued, fundamental to religious ­discourse: What religion does—and this, I submit, is its defining characteristic—is to invest specific human preferences with transcendent status by misrepresenting them as revealed truths, primordial traditions, divine commandments and so forth. In this way, it insulates them against most forms of debate and critique, assisting their transmission from one generation to another as part of a sacred canon. (Lincoln 2000: 416) What Woodhead refers to as a submerged norm for “authentic religion” may partly be connected to this general level of emic truths, with proper religions rooted in—if not the primordial past—than at least in the distant past, long before the present. Our late modern religio-historical approaches deal with social constructions of traditions, roots, and primordial times, but moral evaluations of New Age inventiveness may nevertheless be informed by this emic vision of religious authenticity.

Notes 1. Colin Campbell’s “The Cult, Secularization and the Cultic Milieu” holds a rather unique position in studies of the alternative spiritual subculture. “The cultic milieu,” Campbell argued, is a constant feature of society; “continually giving

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birth to new cults, absorbing the debris of the dead ones and creating new ­generations of cult-prone individuals to maintain the high levels of membership turnover” (Campbell 1972:121). 2. For an early overview of the New Age movement, see Lewis and Melton 1992. For a recent contribution, see Gilhus and Sutcliffe 2013. 3. Reference to a spiritual revolution is empirically based on a study of Kendal, a small English town. 4. See also Aupers and Houtman 2010 a and b; Partridge 2013. 5. See also Bovbjerg 2010 on New Age in business organizations and management. 6. Constance Cumbey’s The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow is an example of inclusiveness, apart from being perhaps the single most influential example of antiNew Age literature from Christian circles. 7. The survey was based on national newspapers, and was supported by the digital search engine Atekst. For a more detailed analysis of this case, see Døving and Kraft 2013, and Kraft 2011. 8. 95% in 2001.

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Den norske kirke. 1999. Kirken i møte med den åndelige lengsel i vår tid: Betenkning til Kirkemøtet 1999. Oslo, September 2. Døving, Cora Alexa, and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2013. Religion i pressen. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Fonneland, Trude, and Siv Ellen Kraft. 2013. “New Age, Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Spirituality.” In New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion, edited by Ingvild Sælid Gilhus and Steven Sutcliffe. Durham: Acumen, 132–145. Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid. 2012. “Post-Secular Religion and the Therapeutic Turn: Three Norwegian Examples.” In Post-Secular Religious Practices, Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 24, edited by Tore Ahlbäck, 62–75. Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid, and Lisbeth Mikaelsson. 1998. Nyreligiøsitet: Kulturens refortrylling. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. ———. 2000. “Multireligiøse aktører og kulturens refortrylling.” Sosiologi i dag 2: 5–22. Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid, and Steven Sutcliffe, eds. 2013. New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. Durham: Acumen. Hammer, Olav. 2001. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2010. “I Did It My Way? Individual Choice and Social Conformity in New Age Religion.” In Religions of Modernity: Relocating the Sacred to the Self and the Digital, edited by Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman, 49–68. Leiden: Brill. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1996. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Leiden: Brill. Heelas, Paul. 1996. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Heelas, Paul, and Linda Woodhead. 2005. The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality. Oxford: Blackwell. Kemp, Daren. 2003. The Christaquarians? A Sociology of Christians in the New Age. London: Kempress Ltd. Kraft, Siv Ellen. 2011. Hva er nyreligiøsitet. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Lincoln, Bruce. 2000. “Culture.” In Guide to the Study of Religion, edited by Willi Braun and Russel T. McCutcheon. 223–240, London: Continuum. Lundervold, Linn Kongsli 2010. “Jeg godtar ikke at Märtha tar kontakt med de døde i våre lokaler”, Dagbladet 12 September. Mikaelsson, Lisbeth. 2008. “Regnbuens skjulte farer: Trusselen fra New Age.” In Kjetterne og kirken: Fra antikken til i dag, edited by Thomas Hägg. 223–240, Fagernes: Scandinavian Academic Press. Otterloo, Anneke Van, Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman. 2012. “Trajectories to the New Age. The Spiritual Turn of the First Generation of Dutch New Age Teachers.” Social Compass. 59(2):239–256. Partridge, Christopher. 2004. The Re-Enchantment of the West. Vol. 1, Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture. London: Clark International.

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Partridge, Christopher. 2005. The Re-Enchantment of the West. Vol. 2, Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture. London: Clark International. ———. 2013. “Occulture is Ordinary.” In Contemporary Esotericism, edited by Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm, 113–133. Sheffield: Equinox. Redden, Guy. 2005. “The New Age: Towards a Market Model.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 20, no. 2: 231–246. Saliba, John A. 1999. Christian Responses to the New Age Movement. London: Chapman/Cassell. Warmind, Morten. 1989. “Holdninger til ‘nyreligiøse’ i fortid og nåtid.” Chaos 12: 17–23. Woodhead, Linda. 2010. “Real Religion and Fuzzy Spirituality? Taking Sides in the Sociology of Religion.” In Religions of Modernity: Relocating the Sacred to the Self and the Digital, edited by Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman, 31–48. Leiden: Brill.

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Contemporary Paganism Manon Hedenborg-White The time is just ripe for a natural religion. People like rites and ceremonies, and they are tired of hypothetical gods. Insist on the real benefits of the sun, the Mother-Force, the FatherForce and so on; and show that by celebrating these benefits worthily the worshippers united themselves even more fully with the current of life. Let the religion be Joy, but with a worthy and dignified sorrow in death itself, and treat death as an ordeal, an initiation. . . . In short be the founder of a new and greater Pagan cult. aleister crowley i

In 1914, British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) envisioned the rise of a world-affirming spirituality celebrating the primal powers of nature and sexuality. His words could be said to foreshadow events of the mid-twentieth century, when British civil servant Gerald Gardner (1884–1964) published several books that allegedly contained some of the secrets of a witches’ coven practicing an ancient form of pagan witchcraft. Regardless of the truthfulness of these claims, Wicca, as Gardner’s religion eventually came to be called, soon blossomed into a vital religious movement and has been greatly influential in inspiring the diverse and vibrant phenomenon known as contemporary Paganism (spelt with a capital P to distinguish it from ancient paganism), which today counts hundreds of thousands of adherents worldwide. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of contemporary Paganism. It will begin by discussing definitions of Paganism and some of its essential characteristics, and proceed to highlight some of the cultural trends that inspired the Pagan revival. Subsequently, a brief account of some of the main Pagan traditions will be provided, followed by a short exposition of Paganism after its exportation to the United States and a discussion of some of the most common beliefs and practices among Pagans. The final part of the

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chapter will be devoted to some of the controversies that have affected the Pagan movement, as well as analyses of Pagan views on gender and sexuality.

Definitions and Demarcations While historically it has often been used as a derogatory label, the word “Paganism” (or Neopaganism) is today used to describe a group of revivalistic religious traditions, which include Wicca (mentioned above) and other witchcraft traditions, Druidry, Heathenry (also known as Asatrú ), and various other traditions that attempt to reconstruct ancient Egyptian, Greek, Latvian, Celtic, or other traditions.2 This chapter will treat Paganism as a distinct albeit multifaceted group of religions, fundamentally different from both ancient pre-Christian religions and the various indigenous polytheistic religions that exist across the globe today. While drawing on ancient images for inspiration, I maintain that contemporary Paganism is, as some scholars have claimed, a reaction to the “crisis of modernity,” rejecting the notion of rationality and scientific and technological progress as keys to the salvation of humanity. Contemporary Paganism is characterized by romanticized notions of the past as a time when people lived in harmony with the earth, and posits an enchanted worldview as an alternative to both the concept of a dead god as well as a transcendent, omnipotent god who is wholly apart from humanity. Although in some senses rejecting modernity, Paganism also embraces some clearly modern elements such as an emphasis on individual freedom, the use of information technology, and ecological activism. Many Pagan traditions emphasize inner divinity, often expressed in the language of modern psychological theories. Finally, many forms of contemporary Paganism involve an element of feminist critique of patriarchy and the religions that have supported it that clearly sets it apart from its ancient predecessors as well as contemporary indigenous traditions. While academic definitions of Paganism vary, the writings of a number of leading scholars in the field of Pagan Studies converge on some points: the idea of divinity as wholly or partly immanent in the natural world ­(pantheism/panentheism), sometimes manifested in a number of deities (polytheism), and, as noted above, a romanticized understanding of nature (see, e.g., Hutton 1999; Luhrmann 1994; Pearson 2002; Berger 1999; York 2003). While a definition of Paganism as a religious phenomenon characterized by polytheism, a sense of immanent divinity, and veneration of nature does not preclude application to non-Western religions per se, the term is generally applied to a strand of genealogically related Western traditions



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born out of a specific set of cultural trends, and which began to emerge in the mid-twentieth century. A different understanding is provided by religious studies scholar Michael York, who defines Paganism as: “an affirmation of interactive and polymorphic sacred relationship by individual or community with the tangible, sentient, and nonempirical” (York 2003: 157). York contends that the set of ­religions to which the term “Paganism” is usually applied are only one subcategory of a global class of essentially very similar religions and argues the case for Paganism as a world religion also comprising indigenous traditions across the globe such as Shintoism, American indigenous religions, and African tribal religions, as well as various Afro-Caribbean syncretistic religions and ancient paganisms. York’s ideas are partly a response to criticisms of contemporary Paganism which hold that the latter is not “a serious religion.” York dismisses such claims by attempting to prove that Paganism is a global phenomenon that provides meaning and existential guidance to humans all over the world and has done so since the dawn of time (York 2003). While York’s wish to treat contemporary Paganism as a serious religion is, of course, admirable, his analysis is problematic. First, it is debatable whether widening the category of Paganism to the point of unrecognizability so that it includes an extremely diverse range of religions with widely varying cultural, historical, and political backgrounds is really helpful to scholars attempting to understand them. Second, the many scholars working inside the academic field of Pagan Studies are surely proof enough that Paganism can be treated as a serious religion without constructing a universalist and somewhat Eurocentric definition that overlooks the significant differences between ancient paganisms, contemporary polytheistic and/or animistic religions worldwide, and contemporary Western Paganism. Third, imposing the category of “Pagans” on people who would not use it themselves is troubling, given the history of the term as a derogatory label used to denote the indigenous religions of colonized people. Fourth, York’s definition fails to comprehend what sets contemporary (Western) Paganism apart, that is, its essence as a distinctly modern religion born from modern needs that draws on cultural trends and historical currents specific to Western society.

Denominations Much like the great majority of world religions, contemporary Paganism is an umbrella term comprising several different traditions which lack organizational or doctrinal coherence. Paganism can thus not be treated as a homogeneous religion. In the following passages, brief overviews of some of the main

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Pagan denominations—Wicca and witchcraft, Druidry, and Heathenry—will be provided.

Wicca and Witchcraft Originally, the terms “Paganism” and “Wicca” were used almost interchangeably in England. All presidents of the Pagan Federation were Wiccan until 1997, and the organization’s magazine, today called Pagan Dawn, was titled The Wiccan up until 1994. However, the election of a non-Wiccan Pagan Federation president in 1997, and the name-change of the organization’s publication from The Wiccan to Pagan Dawn in 1996 have contributed to the image of Paganism and Wicca as interrelated yet distinct phenomena (Pearson 2002: 39). Historically, Wicca refers to the duotheistic mystery tradition popularized by Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into a coven of witches in the New Forest area of England, sometime during the 1930s. According to Gardner, the woman who allegedly initiated him, “Old Dorothy,” was part of a secret lineage of witches that dated back centuries and had survived the spread of Christianity. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Gardner published several works detailing what he claimed to have learned from the New Forest coven. Most serious scholars agree that it is highly unlikely that Gardner’s version of the story is true, as there is no evidence for an ancient Pagan witch cult that survived the spread of Christianity (Hutton 1999). Traditionally, Wiccans revere the divine in the form of one Great Goddess and her son-consort, the Horned God, and work together in autonomous groups called covens, which traditionally consist of thirteen people. Covens are customarily led by a High Priestess and/or a High Priest and have three initiatory grades, which reflect the level of a person’s skill and experience. Wiccan covens engage in different types of ritual work together, such as celebrations of the eight seasonal sabbats (see below), esbats, initiations, and rites of passage (Pearson 2002). Gardnerian Wicca is not the only modern Pagan witchcraft tradition in existence. While a variety of branches worthy of exploration exists, most of these exceed the scope of this chapter and only two of the most well-known will be mentioned. In the 1960s, Alex Sanders (1926–1988) founded what came to be called the Alexandrian tradition, which resembles Gardnerian witchcraft, but with a stronger emphasis on ceremonial magic. Another ­tradition that appears to have originated around the same time is that of Robert Cochrane (1931–1966), who claimed to be descended from a family of witches and created a brand of the craft. While in some respects Cochranian



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witchcraft resembles the Gardnerian tradition, its exact origins are uncertain (Hutton 1999). While historically Wicca denotes a specific type of Pagan witchcraft, the term is increasingly used to describe a number of different phenomena. Many who have not been initiated into a Wiccan tradition but practice Pagan witchcraft choose to refer to themselves as Wiccans rather than witches, and solitary practitioners who self-style themselves Wiccans account for at least half the total number of Pagan witches (Pearson 2002: 42–43; Berger 1999: 167). As Wicca was exported to the United States, it fused with the women’s spirituality movement, creating what may be called feminist witchcraft or goddess spirituality. Goddess spirituality has an ambivalent position in relation to Paganism; while many practitioners venerate pre-Christian deities like other Pagans, feminist witchcraft covens are often open to women only, and tend to focus exclusively on the female aspect of divinity. For this reason, some Wiccans and scholars are adverse to the inclusion of goddess spirituality under the term “Paganism” (Rountree 2004: 8; Davy 2007: 7; Pearson 2002: 36–37). However, whether the veneration of both male and female deities is actually an essential characteristic of Paganism or rather a normative idea shared by certain scholars and practitioners is a topic worthy of discussion.

Druidry Like Paganism, Druidry is an umbrella term: many Druid orders are Christian, others Pagan, while yet others are eclectic and mix elements of both Pagan and Christian traditions. Although druids existed as a priestly class in Celtic society, the modern Druidic movement originated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries during the Romantic revival. Whereas previously the ancient druids had been viewed as anti-Christian barbarians, Romantic literature began to portray them as noble, wise men living in harmony with the land. This resulted in the formation of the first Druid orders in the eighteenth century, though these were not Pagan in orientation. In the second half of the twentieth century, renewed interest in Celtic spirituality and reconstruction eventually resulted in the first Pagan Druid orders, such as the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids by Ross Nicholls in 1964 (Butler 2005: 97–101; Shallcrass 1996). While the image of ancient druidry is an important source of identity for contemporary Druids, Druidry as practiced today is a modern movement. Ancient druids’ veneration of nature must be understood in the context of a time when people were dependent on nature for survival, while the romanticized view of nature that contemporary Druids (as many other Pagan traditions)

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exhibit is largely a product of the modern, urbanized world. The notion of healing the environment and protecting sacred sites against exploitation, an activity in which many Druids engage, is a response to modern issues with which ancient Druids did not need to deal (Butler 2005: 96). As may be surmised from the fact that many Druid orders are Christian in orientation, there is no universal Druidic theology. Druids generally observe the same festivals as Wiccans: the so-called fire festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and Lughnasadh, as well as the solstices and equinoxes. Druidry can also incorporate elements of non-Celtic origin. Native American customs such as the sweat lodge, shamanic practices like dancing, chanting, and drumming, and meditation techniques derived from Hinduism, Buddhism, or Western magical orders such as the Golden Dawn are all examples of nontraditional practices in which some Pagan Druids engage (Shallcrass 1996).

Heathenry Heathenry (also referred to variously as Asatrú, Odinism, Northern Tradition, etc.) is a name used for a religion (or group of religions) focused on Scandinavian or Germanic reconstructions. Heathens study literature and folklore, especially the Icelandic Eddas and Sagas, in order to gain an understanding of the religious beliefs and customs of pre-Christian Northern Europe. The first attempt to revive Northern European Pagan mythology took place during the Romantic period as part of a general fascination with indigenous cultural heritage. During the Second World War, elements of Germanic and Norse mythology were selectively adopted in Third Reich propaganda, lending a somewhat suspect image to the tradition in large parts of Europe for decades afterwards. However, a third revival took place in the 1970s, partly as a result of research and archaeological findings (Blain 2005: 192). While Heathens often practice their religion as solitaires or in small groups (known as kindreds or hearths), there are a number of national and international organizations such as the Ring of Troth, the Odinic Rite, and the Asatrú Alliance (Harvey 1997). Heathens are polytheists, venerating deities such as Thor, Tyr, Odhinn, Freyja, Freyj, and Frigg. They are generally more inclined than other types of Pagans to insist on the independent existence of deities. Many Heathens also believe in the existence of various types of land-wights and ancestral spirits, and believe that deities and spirits can be communicated with directly. Most believe in the efficacy of magic and techniques to achieve altered states of consciousness, although not all Heathens engage in these practices (Davy 2007: 159–160; Harvey 1997: 67–68; Blain 2005: 187).



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Some Heathens practice Shamanic magic, so-called seidr, involving techniques to achieve altered states of consciousness. Practitioners can engage in seidr for a variety of reasons such as divination, healing, communicating with spirits or deities, or building relationships with the land or the supernatural realm. Other Heathen ritual practices include the blot, when offerings are made to deities or spirits, and sumbel, a ritual of toasting. A blot can be very simple, such as the act of putting aside some of one’s food for a supernatural entity, or more elaborate, as some group rituals devised by Heathens that can involve poems or readings, consecration of space, inviting deities and wights to participate, and raising energy to accomplish the wishes of the group. Sumbel may constitute part of a blot when the practitioners share a simple toast, but can also be a ritual in itself (Blain 2005: 190–200).

History As noted above, Paganism is a distinctly modern phenomenon that responds to particularly modern needs. However, modern Paganism did not come into existence fully formed in the 1940s and 1950s. British historian Ronald Hutton traces the ideological origins of the Pagan revival to the Romantic poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth century such as Keats, Shelley, and others who reacted to industrialization and general disillusionment by idealizing ancient Greek culture and religion, onto which they projected the values they felt were lacking in modern society such as sensibility, enchantment, and closeness to nature. Ancient paganism was perceived as the embodiment of wisdom and free spirituality. Discontent with urbanization resulted in an enthusiastic celebration of rural Britain, drawing on ancient images. One of the most prominent of these was the Greek nature god Pan, while another was Gaia—another Greek image, the female spirit of the earth itself. This romanticized and poetic vision of rural England thus came to emphasize a horned god and a great goddess of nature (Hutton 1999; Pearson 2002). Another figure who has had tremendous importance for the Pagan revival is British Egyptologist Margaret Murray (1863–1963), who claimed that there had existed an ancient form of witchcraft before the Christianization of Europe, which was later demonized and persecuted by the church. While Murray has been largely discredited in recent decades, her books were widely read and her ideas had a strong influence on the emergence of the Pagan movement. In a similar vein, Gardner claimed that his Wicca was a continuation of a witch cult that had survived in secret for

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c­ enturies, and which was ultimately derived from a presumably matriarchal, pre-Christian society (Hutton 1999: 194–201, 224–225). Paganism also owes much to the Western esoteric tradition, which can be traced back to Hellenistic Egypt. After the seventeenth century and onward, esoteric traditions became increasingly associated with initiatory orders such as the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Ordo Templi Orientis. Ceremonial magic remained mostly within a Christian paradigm until the mid-nineteenth century, but from then on ancient pagan deities were increasingly invoked in rituals. Gardner read widely on different strands of occultism. He met Aleister Crowley and was deeply impressed by the latter during a period of his life, borrowing heavily from Crowley and his Ordo Templi Orientis when compiling what would later become his Book of Shadows. Much of Crowley’s direct influence was later reduced in a revised version of the Book of Shadows written by Gardner and Doreen Valiente, an initiate and High Priestess of the former who would subsequently become tremendously influential in shaping contemporary Paganism (Hutton 1999, 2013). Wicca was introduced in the United States in the 1960s by Raymond Buckland (b. 1934), and the writings of authors such as Gardner and Murray helped spread the interest in Pagan witchcraft during the height of the sexual revolution and the advent of the second wave of feminism. In the United States, Pagan witchcraft grew rapidly and assumed a particular, American flavor, merging partly with the women’s spirituality movement to create a less hierarchical and more political brand of Paganism (Pearson 2002: 36; Berger 1999: 12; Hutton 1999: 341). One of the most prominent figures in the creation of this new and overtly feminist brand of witchcraft was Hungarian refugee Zsuzsanna Budapest. Inspired by radical feminism and the works of Charles Leland and Gerald Gardner, Budapest established a coven and founded her own branch of feminist separatist witchcraft that came to be known as “Dianic” (Hutton 1999: 340–344). While Budapest drew largely on Wiccan ritual structure in creating her tradition, it differed from earlier forms of Wicca, which emphasize gender polarity and admit both men and women. The gap between Budapest’s feminist aspirations and the gender-inclusive witchcraft of the Wiccan traditions was bridged by Miriam Simos, alias Starhawk. Her most famous book The Spiral Dance was first published in 1979 and has largely replaced Gardner’s Witchcraft Today as the universal introductory text among aspiring Wiccans. In Starhawk’s interpretation, the coven is a forum for women’s empowerment and the reinterpretation of both male and female gender roles (Hutton 1999: 345–346).



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Beliefs and Practices Presenting a concise summary of Pagan beliefs and practices is somewhat problematic. First, Paganism has no universally accepted revelatory text, and Pagan customs vary across traditions and from one practitioner to another. Second, defining Paganism by listing a number of beliefs and practices that supposedly constitute the essence of Paganism and checking traditions against it may produce normative constructions of what one may think Paganism ought to be (see above), rather than what it is (Davidsen 2012: 187).3 Nonetheless, there seems to be general agreement among many scholars regarding a few basic tenets of Pagan belief and practice. For instance, most Pagans engage in one or several of the following: seasonal rituals; rituals of operative magic; rites of passage to mark transitions in life; and initiatory rituals. Pagans reject the Abrahamic-monotheist model of divinity and do not believe in one omnipotent, omniscient, and transcendent male deity. Most Pagans are polytheistic and venerate both gods and goddesses. While some view deities as independent divine entities, others choose to believe that all gods and goddesses are ultimately manifestations of one God and one Goddess, or a supreme and genderless divine reality. Pagans envision divinity as immanent, meaning that the divine dwells in the natural world rather than outside it. Some take a pantheist (the belief that the natural world is the divine) or panentheist (the belief that divinity contains the natural world but also extends beyond it) view of the cosmos. A general theme in contemporary Paganism is thus that divinity can be experienced directly through the material universe. Many Pagan traditions have a romantic view of nature and sacralize the natural year and changing of the seasons through the celebration of solstices, equinoxes, harvests, lunar phases, and so on (Davy 2007; Berger 1999; Pearson 2002). Another important part of many Pagan worldviews is the belief in magic and the efficacy of spells or rituals (Davy 2007: 13–14; Hutton 1999: 390). Hutton argues that the abolishment of the normative distinction between religion and magic, which treats the latter as a primitive predecessor of the former, is in fact integral to contemporary Paganism. The prevalence of belief in magic among contemporary Pagans does not mean that Pagans reject science or the notion of instrumental causality, but rather the notion that some mechanisms in the universe have yet to be explained by scientists (Hutton 1999: 390–392). Interpretations of the efficacy of magic differ between Pagans and are often ambivalent and complex. Many witches claim that performing a ritual has a therapeutic benefit in itself and provides the opportunity to confront

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psychological issues. There is therefore an aspect of magic that functions as therapy or placebo. At the same time, many witches also insist that magic can be literally effective, although most would agree that it is an inexact method that operates through probabilities rather than inevitabilities (Hutton 1999: 395–396). Esotericism scholar Wouter J. Hanegraaff has noted that “sacralisation of psychology” and “psychologisation of the sacred” are very common trends in modern forms of Western esotericism; the individual psyche becomes increasingly conflated with the divine in esoteric discourse, and divine beings are increasingly envisioned as aspects of the magician’s mind (Hanegraaff 2013). Hutton indicates that the same may be true of Paganism, which is arguably an offshoot of the esoteric tradition: “The essence of religious experience in modern pagan witchcraft lies in the awakening or enhancement of powers within the participant, by contact with deity forms which may or may not be regarded as objectively real but are treated as though they are” (1999: 392). Some Pagans view gods and goddesses in psychological terms, as archetypes of the human mind. Magic and ritual are not distinguishable from religion in Pagan practice but are viewed as means to spiritual transformation. Hutton’s words also illustrate the uncertainty among Pagans regarding the question of whether or not deities exist independently of the human mind. Some Pagans favor a psychological explanation and view deities as archetypes of the natural cosmos or the human mind, projections of human emotion that have taken on a life of their own, or as convenient images, while others are convinced that deities have independent existences (Davy 2007: 17; Hutton 1999: 391). By and large, the closeness of humanity and divinity is a recurring theme in Paganism. Pagans construct the divine not as an abstract model to be believed in, but as a manifest reality to be experienced, and generally draw no absolute boundaries between humanity and the divine, as divine potential is inherent in all people and can be enhanced through deliberate work. Unlike the transcendent and impersonal god of Abrahamic monotheism, Pagan deities are often depicted as beings with limited power and imperfect nature (Strmiska 2005: 35–36). Pagans believe that the divine can be experienced directly and in this life, and place high value on personal experience rather than revelation. In this sense, Paganism rejects the notion of an omnipotent ­“super-God,” relations with whom must be negotiated by trained clergy. This emphasis on personal experience and the self as sacred may be an aspect of the tradition’s distinctly modern essence. At the same time, it is worth repeating that Paganism applies these modern notions to reject other elements of modernity.



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Although practitioners of Pagan witchcraft are eclectic and creative, it has been argued that the basic format of Pagan witchcraft suggested in the Gardnerian Book of Shadows still holds strong. Hutton notes that duotheism, the casting of a sacred circle with four cardinal points, the sharing of consecrated food and drink, invocation of deities and an initiatory structure, usually threelayered, celebrations of the full moon and the eight sabbats constitute nearly ubiquitous features of Pagan witchcraft (Hutton 1999: 399). Nonetheless, each tradition has its own unique rituals. Traditions involved in specific forms of reconstruction often have their own seasonal festivals. Wiccans have created a calendric cycle of eight festivals, sabbats, which are inspired by the Celtic ritual year and are observed by many Druids and eclectic Pagans as well. The sabbats mark the Summer and Winter Solstices known as Litha and Yule, Spring and Autumn Equinoxes called Oestre and Mabon, as well the four so-called fire-festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and Lughnasadh (Strmiska 2005: 40). Many Pagans have home altars, which serve as a holding place for ritual tools as well as surfaces for spell casting. Altars often contain representations or symbols of the four elements or directions, such as a candle for fire, salt for earth, a container of water and a feather to represent air. Some choose to keep representations of the divine on their altars, such as symbols of the God and Goddess or statues representing particular deities.

Controversies Historically, the Pagan community has had numerous internal conflicts, many of which have revolved around the matter of authenticity: proponents of different witchcraft traditions have accused others of being less authentic than themselves, and the so-called “Murray thesis” has been a source of significant dispute, especially after new scholarship that falsified Murray’s claims began to reach the Pagan community. When Wicca went public, Gardner’s nightly gatherings provoked considerable scandal. In Britain today, however, Paganism is largely portrayed in positive terms by the media. Although both witches and Druids have sometimes been accused of devil worship due to sensationalism and misrepresentation in popular culture—particularly during the so-called Satanic Panic of the late 1980s and 1990s—the media is becoming increasingly adept at researching and portraying Paganism accurately, and the dedication of some public Pagans in representing Paganism as a gender-equal, nature-loving, and gentle religion appears to have contributed to a comparatively positive image of Paganism among the general public (Hutton 1999; Strmiska 2005; Butler 2005).

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Still, some scholars indicate that Paganism and Wicca remain controversial topics in the academy. Hutton writes that scholars wishing to explore these topics inevitably become involved in a fierce and polarized debate, and that outsiders instantly assume them to be either “for” or “against” Paganism (York 2003; Hutton 2004). Relations between fundamentalist Christians and Pagans do not always flow smoothly. It has been suggested that conflicts between Christians and Pagans may continue to increase if the latter continue to grow in number. Many contemporary Pagans feel antagonistic toward Christianity, viewing it as an anti-sexual, anti-women, anti-natural, and authoritarian religion, and identify with ancient Pagans who were persecuted for their religious affiliations as part of the church’s efforts to fully Christianize Europe. Conversely, the rise of Paganism may draw attention to dishonorable episodes of the past that many Christians wish to forget. As the spread of Paganism challenges the triumphalist narrative of the history of humanity where Christianization of the earth is seen as a natural development, it makes sense that some conservative Christians are antagonistic. There have been cases where Pagans have been fired from their jobs when their religious affiliations have been exposed, and many contemporary Pagans feel compelled to keep their spirituality secret to avoid discrimination—further bolstering the sense that Christianity is the opposite and enemy of Paganism (Strmiska 2005: 29–34).

Gender and Sexuality At least from the fin de siècle and onward, several branches of the Western esoteric tradition have been intensely preoccupied with gender. British historian Alex Owen contends that the occult around the turn of the century attracted people from several different positions in gender politics, and that the occultism of the period to some extent paved the way for a kind of spiritual feminism. Although not everyone in the occult community was comfortable with female leadership, many occult orders of the time allowed women to assume positions of authority, and women were integral to the occult revival of the fin-de-siècle as public proponents of radical new views on women (Owen 2004: 87–92). It appears that the Pagan revival has continued in a similar vein by providing an arena for the renegotiation of gender roles, and it has been argued that the witchcraft revival reflects the changing attitudes toward gender and sexuality in the mid-twentieth century (Salomonssen 2002; Urban 2006; Berger 1999). For many Pagans, women’s empowerment is linked to sexual liberation,



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breaking free of the associative links between sexuality—particularly female sexuality—and sin. In a somewhat radical move in 1950s England, Gardner adopted the practice of ritual nudity and sexual intercourse in the form of the “Great Rite,” a ritual in which the male and female celebrants invoke the God and Goddess who unite through their human vessels, which according to the Gardnerian Book of Shadows signifies the third grade of initiation into Wicca.4 While creating a religion that sacralized both men’s and women’s bodies and allowed women to assume positions of authority, however, Gardner also gave voice to conservative ideas in matters of gender. Gardner’s Witchcraft Today (1954) reveals his aversion to homosexuality, and he threatens same-sex couples with the “curse of the Goddess” (Gardner 1954: 69). His somewhat controversial Craft Laws put forth the idea that the High Priestess only lends her power from the male divine principle and is only allowed to wield it so long as she is sufficiently young and attractive (Gardner 2004: 226–227). Doreen Valiente writes: “We were allowed to call ourselves High Priestesses, Witch Queens and similar fancy titles; but we were still in the position of having men running things and women doing as the men directed. As soon as the women started seeking real power, trouble was brewing” (Valiente 1989: 182). In the 1960s, as noted above, modern witchcraft became linked with radical feminist thought in a way that came to influence contemporary Paganism in Europe as well. In the writings of prolific Pagan authors such as Starhawk and Budapest, Paganism is linked to a quest for liberation from established gender roles and patriarchal oppression. However, concerns have also been voiced among scholars and practitioners that the Pagan quest for women’s liberation sometimes tends to reproduce essentialist constructions of male and female gender and sexuality. Many of the early Pagan texts that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s built on strongly heterosexual symbolism expressed through such binaries as male–female, god–goddess, sun– moon and so on, espousing a stereotypical image of womanhood as synonymous with nature, motherhood, and irrationality. The notion of gender polarity is essential to the Great Rite as well as the idea that covens should divide into male–female couples and initiation pass from male to female, or vice versa. The hegemony of heterosexual polarity in Pagan magic is increasingly challenged today by contemporary Pagans, many of them lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered, who explore alternative gender roles and redefine the concept of polarity and form organizations and produce literature of their own (see, e.g., Lupa 2009; Faerywolf 2000; Kaldera 2001, 2006; Hunter 2004).

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Conclusion As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Aleister Crowley once envisioned the rise of a Pagan cult focused, among other things, on the polarity of sun and moon, male and female. The notion of polarity is particularly prevalent in the Wiccan tradition, but negotiating polarities is part of the legacy of Paganism. As scholarship of the last few decades has cast serious doubt on the claims of some Pagans regarding the ancient lineages of their traditions, one challenge for contemporary Pagans is retaining a sense of authenticity that is compatible with contemporary tastes and desires. Reconciling tolerance, an important value for many Pagans, with the need to defend oneself against the intolerance of others is a challenge in itself. As noted previously, the notion of polarity itself is contested, and Pagans are torn between the will to sacralize the physical body and the necessity for a non-essentialist framework that can also incorporate the experiences of those who do not fit into a traditional heterosexual structure. These challenges are likely to continue, and how Pagans choose to address them will impact the future development of the “new and greater Pagan cult.”

Notes 1. Letter quoted in Symonds 1952: 194–195. 2. Some scholars, particularly in North America, prefer the term “Neopaganism,” as it clearly distinguishes the contemporary religious phenomenon from ancient pagan traditions. British scholars largely prefer the term “Paganism,” as do many practitioners (Pearson 2002: 16). For this reason, the term “Paganism” rather than “Neopaganism” will be used here. 3. Cf. Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s critique of “religionist” definitions of Western esotericism by postulating a number of characteristics that supposedly constitute the essence of esoteric traditions. 4. Today, the practice of ritual sexual intercourse is controversial in Pagan circles, and many witches favor a symbolic re-enactment.

Bibliography Berger, Helen. 1999. A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Blain, Jenny. 2005. “Heathenry, the Past, and Sacred Sites in Today’s Britain.” In Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Michael F. Strmiska, 181–208. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.



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Butler, Jenny. 2005. “Druidry in Contemporary Ireland.” In Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Michael F. Strmiska, 87–126. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Davidsen, Markus Altena. 2012. “What is Wrong with Pagan Studies?” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 24: 183–199. Davy, Barbara Jane. 2007. Introduction to Pagan Studies. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Faerywolf, Storm. 2000. “The Queer Craft: Rethinking Magickal Polarity.” Faerywolf. com. http://www.faerywolf.com/essay_queer.htm. Gardner, Gerald. 1954. Witchcraft Today. London: Rider. ———1959. The Meaning of Witchcraft. London: The Aquarian Press. ———. 2004. Witchcraft and the Book of Shadows. Thame: I-H-O Books. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 2013. Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Harvey, Graham. 1997. Contemporary Paganism: Listening People, Speaking Earth. New York: New York University Press. Hunter, Jennifer. 2004. Rites of Pleasure: Sexuality in Wicca and Neopaganism. New York: Citadel Press. Hutton, Ronald. 1999. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. New York: Oxford University Press. ———2004. “Living With Witchcraft.” In Researching Paganisms, edited by Jenny Blain, Douglas Ezzy and Graham Harvey, 171–188. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. ———2013. “Crowley and Wicca.” In Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, edited by Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr, 285–306. New York: Oxford University Press. Kaldera, Raven. 2001. Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook. Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris Corp. ———. 2006. Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and the Ordeal Path. Hubbardston, MA: Asphodel Press. Luhrmann, Tanya. 1984. Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lupa. 2009. “The Female Kink Magician.” In Women’s Voices in Magic, edited by Brandy Williams, 126–135. Stafford: Megalithica Books. Owen, Alex. 2004. The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pearson, Joanne. 2002. “The History and Development of Wicca and Paganism.” In Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age, edited by Joanne Pearson, 15–54. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Rountree, Kathryn. 2004. Embracing the Witch and the Goddess: Feminist Ritual-Makers in New Zealand. London: Routledge, 2004.

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Salomonsen, Jone. 2002. Enchanted Feminism: Ritual, Gender and Divinity among the Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco. London: Routledge. Shallcrass, Philip. 1996. “Druidry Today.” In Paganism Today: Wiccans, Druids, the Goddess and Ancient Earth Traditions for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Graham Harvey and Charlotte Hardman, 65–80. London: HarperCollins. Strmiska, Michael F. 2005. “Modern Paganism in World Cultures. Contemporary Perspectives.” In Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Michael F. Strmiska, 1–54. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Symonds, John. 1952. The Great Beast: The Life of Aleister Crowley. New York: Roy Publishers. Urban, Hugh. 2006. Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic and Liberation in Modern Western Sexual Magic. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Valiente, Doreen. 1989. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. Custer, WA: Phoenix Publishing. York, Michael. 2003. Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion. New York: New York University Press.

19

Popularity of—and Controversy in—Contemporary Shamanism Anne Kalvig

in 2012, the Norwegian, female, urban shaman Gro-Helen Tørum’s autobiography, Shaman in High Heels: My Journey into an Unknown Land appeared.1 In this book, co-authored with a journalist, Tørum tells the tale of a life filled with challenges and illnesses connected with Tørum’s journey of accepting and developing her special skills and qualities as a light worker, medium, shaman, and “dancer between the dimensions.” The way the term “shaman” is employed in this case is illustrative of a development in the ­variegated field of neo-shamanism: by referring to themselves as shamans, practitioners like Tørum thereby identify [or ADAPT, or MATCH] a popular, vernacular type of religiosity marked by mediumship and therapy - a field dominated by women, with a relatively low position in the cultural-spiritual hierarchy, with shamanism. In this chapter I provide an analysis of this development, seeing it partly as an attempt to widen the scope of action for women associated with the field of occulture and “alternativity.”2 I delineate trends within the academic field of neo-shamanism and paganism, and then present contemporary shamanism as a global “movement” or impulse from the days of Castaneda (1970) and Harner (1980) to the present. I look at Nordic shamanism and paganism, suggest a conflating of neo-­ shamanism with spiritism, and then turn to Tørum and other female neoshamans as examples of recent developments in this field. I ask in what ways they epitomize intersections and contacts of various fields and trends within (popular) occulture, and how they stage and negotiate their roles and positions within the Norwegian alternative spirituality subculture and the general public.

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Delineating the Academic Field The academic literature on neo-shamanism3 is to a notable degree written by people sympathetic toward it and/or involved in it or in adjacent practices (see, e.g., Blain 2002; Wallis 2003; Tramacchi 2006; Greenwood 2005, 2009; Sanson 2009). Although this situation is sometimes likened to the parallel situation found in gender or queer studies (Lindquist 1997: 7; Wallis 2003: 12; Sanson 2009: 443), this trait may leave the reader with the impression that neo-shamanism is something different from other religious or spiritual practices, as a detached, “neutral” position is generally encouraged within most academic traditions gathered under the umbrella of religious studies (as opposed, e.g., to theology). The challenges of participant fieldwork, of insideroutsider problematics, and of studying religious-spiritual traditions with few or no sacred texts, are well known within the study of contemporary spirituality and provide clues to understanding some of the professional drives of the neo-shamanistic academician. However, there is a different situation in ethnographic work on contemporary spiritism and mediumship, where less research has been conducted, and with an imperceptible number of academicians “going native.”4 Obviously, the former practice has a personal appeal to several academicians, while the latter does not. The reasons for this point to one of the subjects of this chapter, namely, the different positions of different spiritual practices within a sociocultural hegemony, of which academia is also a part. Mediumship has generally a low score, “plastic neo-shamanism” (the so-called New Age diluted variant) ranges perhaps somewhat higher, whereas indigenous, tribal, and/or “dedicated” neo-shamanism clearly has a higher, ascribed status. Studies of the intersections of shamanism and mediumship thus might be affected by the relatively low position and regard of New Age bricoleurs and entrepreneurs who are viewed as shallow shoppers and merchants in a market, as opposed to (the perception of ) the more spiritually ­responsible paganists identifying with collective needs and the urges of the environmentalist, bent upon reviving pre-Christian traditions. Wallis (2003: 228) asserts that “Neo-shamans are, in some instances, powerful forces for social and political critique, not simply consumers promoting individualistic psychological and/or ‘spiritual’ betterment.”5 I hold this analysis to be sound, but it should also be extended to the oft-despised field of New Age therapy, where a variety of different political positions and moral and ethical considerations can be found (Woodhead and Sointu 2008; Kalvig 2013). This also goes for the field of spiritism and mediumship. The academic embracing of paganism, including neo-shamanism, involving as it does fewer people than the spiritist, mediumship-oriented, therapist current of culture, is understandable when



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it comes to traditional, academic perceptions of our proper object of investigation (religion) and the methods thus employed, as the latter is less dimensionally stable, containing blurred boundaries with other practices and fields of culture. Still, this specific, academic favoritism results in the Norwegian, female medium identifying and calling herself a shaman and advertising her services for sale in alternative magazines being more controversial, than the (neo-) shamans and their followers congregating for a full moon ceremony under the auspices of the Norwegian Shamanist Congregation.6

Neo-shamanism and Nordic Paganism Neo-shamanism is understood as a spiritual technique and tradition with its beginnings, in the etic sense, in literary sources, namely Carlos Castaneda’s writings on shamanism (1970, 1972), with Mircea Eliade (1951, English edition 1964) as an important forerunner. Being an anthropologist, Castaneda’s training in shamanism through his alleged acquaintance with the Yaqui shaman Don Juan, points to the insider-outsider problematics noted above. The blending of research and practice was, to an even greater and more outspoken degree, pursued by anthropologist Michael Harner, author of The Way of the Shaman (1980) and several other books and texts on shamanism, and founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies in California. This center focuses not on academic studies, but on training programs to promote neoshamanism to the late-modern citizen. Instead of neo-shamanism, Harner invented the concept and tradition of “core shamanism,” promoting the idea that the central features of shamanism from tribal people all over the world were and are the same, and can be learned and practiced by following Harner’s courses and methods.7 The shamanistic content of neo-shamanism is a debatable issue, but the “traveling” of the shaman’s soul between the worlds (the material and spiritual), with the help of various techniques such as drumming, dancing, chanting, and meditating in order to communicate with the spirits in a therapeutic sense, with (individually and/or collectively directed) goals of healing, growth, insight, and well-being, are commonly held as features of neo-shamanism(s).8 Wallis (2003: 33) notes the somewhat paradoxical situation where paganism has become the popular generic term for different traditions like Wicca, Druidism, and Goddess spirituality—all of these are considered as employing neo-shamanic ­techniques—whereas “paganism” was originally located in Classical antiquity.9 This accounts for research like Galina Lindquist’s (1997), documenting and analyzing what could be labeled modern Àsatrú (Nordic heathenry) as neoshamanism, in accordance with notable voices within the field in question, such

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as the Swede Jörgen I. Eriksson (2012). He also views the healers and wise people of Nordic and other traditions as shamans and states, “I do not adhere to the old Aesir faith [Nordic heathenry, the religion of the Vikings] but I have meticulously researched the shamanic elements inherent in the spiritual views of that time” (Eriksson 2012: 12). Jenny Blain (2002), anthropologist and neo-­ shaman, also asserts that the shamanic element of the Norse tradition was “at the heart of pagan religions of Northern Europe,” though she holds that “Norse culture of 1000 years ago was not obviously ‘shamanic’ in the sense in which Tungus or Sámi or Déné culture is said to be or have been shamanic” (Blain 2002: 47). Blain finds the Norse material on seid, the name of the shamanisticlike practice of the seeress or volva and seidmenn (sorcerers), particularly interesting because it is not supported by the entire community (2002: 49). In ­addition to relating to (if not ritualized belief in) the mythological universe of the Viking sagas, rune magic (Eriksson) and the practice of seid or spá (divination) (Blain) are central in the construction of Norse-identified neo-shamanism. The use and understandings of the shamanic elements of the Norse tradition (and other pagan traditions) are highly variegated. Annette Høst, a leading urban shaman in Copenhagen, Denmark, focuses particularly on the Norse tradition, with seidr, galdr, and runic song, but without intending to revive Viking tradition, saying “Tradition is about keeping the fire alive, not worshiping the ashes.”10 At the core of Høst’s shamanic understanding lies the knowledge that “Without spirits, no shaman.”11 This saying points to what will be shown to be the close connections between the spiritist mediumship and shamanism.12 The other great tradition held to be shamanic in Norway is the Sámi tradition of the indigenous people of Sápmi or Sameland, a region stretching over Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Although persecuted up until recent decades, this has been a living tradition, as opposed to the practice of reconstructed Norse tradition or Norse-inspired traditions. Still, what is thought of as Sámi shamanism, with the Sámi shaman, noaide, as the central figure, is far from univocal. The revitalization of the indigenous Sámi tradition and religion may focus on the environmental, spiritual, or shamanic elements, or all at once. One of the main voices in Norway has been Ailo Gaup, who provides, like Høst and Eriksson, courses in and texts on (neo-) shamanism. All of these Scandinavian representatives of neo-shamanism have been students of Michael Harner.

Spiritualized and Medialized Neo-shamanism Harner, in his 84th year, published a book called Cave and Cosmos (2013). In this book, he approaches the spirit world in great detail and gives numerous



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accounts of who the spirits are and how they communicate, providing ample cases from his own fieldwork between 1952 and 2009. He exemplifies spirit possession where people, including himself, are able to speak foreign languages of which they have no previous knowledge (Harner 2013: 23–30). Harner also refers to the natural scientist Alfred Russell Wallace and his 1874 book, Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, as a historical contextualizing of the gulf between science and spirit belief (Harner 2013: 198). Harner laments that Wallace’s book had a hostile reception and holds that Wallace, through the scientific principle of parsimony, offers an explanation of parapsychological phenomena like NDE (Near Death Experiences) and spirit possession that otherwise remain unexplained (Harner 2013: 199). Harner asserts that the ­hypothesis of the spirit world is supported by the shamans worldwide throughout the millennia. Eriksson finds the Harner turn toward a more personalized spirit conception and focus somewhat disturbing, stating that it reminds him of a Rudolf Steiner spiritualism.13 To him, core shamanism is disappointing in that it is smug, with insufficient regard and reverence for Mother Earth, the living creatures, and the richness of various indigenous traditions. Eriksson dismisses his critical review as being a kind of patricide,14 but he clearly illuminates a development within the field of neo-shamanism that corresponds with the theme of this chapter, namely the conflating of—and attention to—the fields of neo-shamanism and spiritism, both within the empirical field [or DATA] and the academia. The spread and popularity of (neo-) shamanism has to a great extent to do with the logic of a globalized and medialized age, where the shaman has become a key figure or symbol summing up numerous ideals and challenges of our time, such as authenticity, a non-dogmatic tradition, the bodily and the ecstatic, unmediated reality, closeness to nature, environmentalist concerns, the permeability of reality, magic, the ontology of the soul, and so on. Clearly, these concepts, issues, ideals, and wishes clinging to “shamanism” and condensed in the figure of the shaman cannot all be said to be logically consequent or true as historical facts. The issues of the content and status of shamanism point to central problematics pertaining to the study of religion in general. However, in the present discussion of how the idea and practice of (neo-) shamanism takes place in culture today, in what sociocultural narratives, relations, positions, and negotiations it is made relevant, the contemporary ideals and challenges thus epitomized are not evaluated against hegemonic (academic) versions of shamanism. The quest for cultural hegemony, however, is employed as an analytical frame on different levels. Media functions today as one of religion’s most important mediators and premise providers, as theorized by various scholars, and is central in the negotiations of the cultural hegemony of spiritual expressions. Hjarvard (2008)

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employs Meyrowitz’s (1997) three metaphors of the mediation process to illustrate how religion is affected by the intervention of media—as channel, as language, and as milieu. Hjarvard claims banal religion to be distributed through media as a channel (that is to say, an admixture of religious ­elements— folk, alternative, and traditional—at the expense of institutional religion transmitted as a coherent system), religious language being transformed into the language of popular culture (with traits of individualism, entertainment, and consumerism), and the media takeover of (the public sense of ) community and belonging, resulting in people turning to media for normative and ontological orientation (instead of finding this in the institutional religion provided by the church, for example) (Hjarvard 2008: 161–162). These processes taken together Hjarvard calls the medialization of religion. Bolter and Grusin (1999) and Grusin (2010) delineate how media operates, and how the flows of information are at the same time reflective and self-reflective, resembling cultural mimesis in general and pointing to problems of duplicity—like religion in “itself”—“religion” being the phenomenon we would like to study, and at the same time a theoretical construct. The media “intention” of erasing itself, in an effort to reach unmediated reality (Bolter and Grusin 1999: 55–56), in some ways resembles religion (contemporary spirituality) understood as a more potent reality (holiness) than profane reality, reachable only through religion. The “affectiveness” of media, where premediation (Grusin 2010) has been intensified as medial pre-emption, could be said to come close to a media version of “prayer.” Taken together, these media perspectives show spirituality (in the present case, in the form of shamanism conflated with mediumship and spiritism) as interwoven with media on different levels, and as medialized expressions, and show, in an extended understanding, how media “in itself” may resemble religion—the concurrent fields of media and religion thus being multiple. Media provides the largest audience for “highheeled shamans” and other shamans, but the “real life” meetings and the remediation hereof are inextricable.

Norwegian High-Heeled Shamanism: The Tørum Case Tørum initially gained fame as a medium and a shaman in a Norwegian ­alternative spirituality television show, The Other Side. The popularity of neo-­ shamanism and the meeting of neo-shamanism, Sámi neo-shamanism, spiritism, and mediumship were presented in an early program in the show series, in 2009.15 The panel of participants in the program, consisting of “New Agers” like Tørum and “ordinary women” of some fame, had a discussion about the ontological status of evil. Well-known New Age conceptualizations



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of evil as being a consequence of negativity, wrong attitudes, and the individual’s attracting negative responses were discussed, but Tørum presented a worldview in which evil had an autonomous place. She confirmed that evil does exist, not as mere misunderstandings, and can be directed toward people in a spiritual sense, through black magic. As a shaman, she held, she knew how to address and neutralize these kinds of attacks. This was somewhat shocking to the rest of the panel. A famous Sámi neo-shaman, Eirik Myrhaug, also took part in this program. When one of the panelists claimed to be under somebody’s evil, magical siege, or gand,16 the panel had decided that Myrhaug should attempt to free her. With the help of his drum, the alleged gand was supposedly neutralized, resulting in tears and relief expressed by the victim of the gand. The rest of the panel was deeply moved. Both this séance and the preceding talk about evil and black magic attracted a substantial number of viewers, though not as many as the hundreds of thousands of viewers who regularly watch this channel’s flagship “The Power of the Spirits” (Åndenes makt), a docu-drama based on the concept of spiritist house cleansing.17 Still, the remediation of the notions that were broadcast, controversial as they are, were almost imperceptible, whereas general contempt for the popular, ­alternative/vernacular spirituality of which this is an example is abundantly mediated to the Norwegian public (Kalvig 2009: 54–60). What the staging of neo-shamanism and Sámi neo-shamanism in this show demonstrated, however, was that there seems to be an openness to the notion of “darker” parts of human existence when people associated with the alternative spirituality or the New Age scene turn to and demonstrate neo-shamanism. In these cases, one hears of danger, evil, and other people’s bad intentions more often than the idealistic and radically solipsistic spirituality that is standard fare in the New Age milieu. Subsequent to this program, Tørum has substantially grown in fame and has specialized in mediumship as her advertised practice, as well as in coaching and therapy as a practitioner in her own enterprise, LifeArt Academy.18 She has, however, all along identified herself as a “shaman,” and this is the term emphasized in the title of her autobiography. Tørum is part of a team of women appearing as mediums in the abovementioned popular television series, “The Power of the Spirits,” consisting of Lena Ranehag and Lilli Bendriss in addition to herself. It is not only Tørum who presents herself as a shaman. Bendriss has to a lesser degree broadcast her shamanic identification, but she appears as a strong and self-confident practitioner of shamanic techniques. Ranehag does not explicitly relate to neo-shamanism. Instead, she focuses on “medial” courses in addition to her television appearances, courses intended to enable people to “travel” to the spirit world (The Invisible Realm) in order to open up to their “Life Plan.”19

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The style of this famed television trio is quite distant from the average notion of a (neo-)shaman—that is to say, somebody appearing in “pagan style” dress with earth-colored, natural materials, or other “natural” or “ethnic” markers. These women are instead “shamans in high heels,” donning dark, ladylike clothes, with hair carefully arranged, heavy makeup, and jewelry of the glaring kind. Tørum had not given many clues as to where she received her shamanic training, or which kind of (neo-) shamanism she adheres to until Shaman in High Heels appeared. Here we learn that she received her shamanistic training from a female neo-shaman in Norway, in what appears to have been from the beginning of 2005 (Tørum 2012: 107–110). According to Tørum, this shaman had herself been trained for three years—among other places in Peru—before passing her knowledge on. On her LifeArt Academy webpage, Tørum says in a sparse biographic note that she graduated as a shaman in 2007 and that she had two masters. The masters seem to have been the shaman mentioned in her biography, in addition to her spiritual, non-earthly guide Metatron. He is described as Tørum herself “in another dimension,” her contact with her own “divinity” (Tørum 2012: 11). The earthly master was initially consulted for therapeutic help by Tørum, and subsequently this shaman identified Tørum as a disciple (Tørum 2012: 108). Tørum, however, gradually realized she had more powerful, shamanic skills than her master. She also discovered, through meditations and regressions, that she had had an incarnation as a shaman in Peru at the time of the Inca Empire. In a regression Tørum meets the Inca regent Pachacuti and asks him whether she can call herself a shaman. She does not receive a clear answer from the emperor, but receives a necklace which symbolizes her ability to “move energy” (Tørum 2012: 109). She asks Metatron what this means, and her guide replies that she is an angel in service to the earth plane, and that she now has passed over to “their side.” Divine energies will be manifested through her. Humble and happy to be a shaman, “for this is not something to be learnt, it is something you are!” (Tørum 2012: 110), Tørum takes the name “Black Eagle Medicine Woman,” revealed to her partly through a dreamcatcher given to her as a gift from her girlfriends, channeled and created by another shaman called “White Deer Medicine Woman.” It was not until realizing her true shamanic identity, that Tørum was restored to health after years of suffering. She had been held in the sway of repeated colds and influenzas, and most notably, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). She had also never come to terms with the death of her newborn twin daughter in 1994. After the shamanic turning point, her sufferings were transformed to power. According to her autobiography, she now employs shamanistic techniques when consulting clients in need of healing and help. She has also learnt shamanic death rituals.20



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Other Female Shamans within the Field of Alternative Therapy and Mediumship Lilli Bendriss from “The Power of the Spirits” is also a (neo-)shaman as well as a clairvoyant and an intermediary in the spiritist sense. Bendriss published an autobiography entitled Gaven (The gift) in 2010. In it, she tells the story of her life’s successes and failures, and views the discovery of her abdominal, precancerous growth as a turning point. Through acupuncture, her “psychic center” was opened, and through meditation and courses in self-development she gained contact with other realms and dimensions, as well as the ability to heal. In an interview with the alternative magazine Magic Magazine21 in 2011, the reporter notes that Bendriss reminds her of Egypt and Cleopatra, and Bendriss confirms that she has had several incarnations in Egypt. She also says we are undergoing a shift in consciousness right now, caused by energies, particles of light, beaming in from cosmos and producing a change in our DNA. Concerning shamanism, Bendriss says she would never call herself a shaman, even though she employs shamanistic techniques.22 This is in accordance with Tørum’s description of Bendriss and Bendriss’s account of herself and her relationship with Tørum in the book (Tørum 2012: 195–197). However, the shamanistic techniques, worldview, and visions are given a central position qua (neo-)shamanism in the above interview and in Tørum’s book. In contrast to Tørum, however, Bendriss demonstrates a somewhat humbler and more hesitant attitude toward it, even though she is described the following way (Tørum 2012: 195): “When Lilli Bendriss . . . bangs her shaman drum and chants and screams from the depth of her soul, I’m fiercely affected. Lilli, the elegant, west-end lady, possesses a tremendous power. She breathes herself into trance and surrenders herself completely to the primitive force.” Bendriss herself says, “It is as if the sound of the drum activates cellular memories of a past life as a Native American” (Tørum 2012: 196). Bendriss laments that Tørum does not dare to join her drum courses, called “The Primitive Force.” Both this course and another called “Dream Journey” are promoted on Bendriss’s home page, with photos of herself with the shaman drum.23 In my own fieldwork and research into alternative therapy and spiritism, I have met a few practitioners who identify themselves as shamans in addition to clairvoyants, mediums, healers, and a variety of other labels (Kalvig 2012b, 2013). One of them, which I will call “Jorunn,” associates regressions into past lives, communication with the dead, experiences in the wild nature of Norway, and being possessed by spirits, with shamanism, stating she actually had practiced shamanism for a decade before ever reading or hearing about it (Kalvig 2012b: 54–55). She says she experienced going into trance and felt as

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if an ancient spirit took over, causing her to speak a language she did not recognize. She was later told by somebody who heard it that it was a Native American language. In her account of shamanism, she relates to (conceptions of ) the Native American kind, though only in a passing remark, and not to Sámi shamanism, even though her husband is of Sámi origin and practices Sámi neo-shamanism. As opposed to the high heeled shamans of the Tørum and Bendriss type, Jorunn does not accentuate “femininity”; she actually says she feels androgynous, or more “like a man,” never having had girlfriends or identified with girlish roles or activities. The effort to synthesize various traditions held to be shamanistic was clear in the Norwegian Shamanist Congregation, where one stresses both the Sámi and the Norse tradition as heritage. Actually, on their webpages, one sees that the Norse elements now are absent, whereas Native (North) American references are abundant. In an interview with the North Norwegian newspaper Nordlys, the leader Lone Ebeltoft says the shamanistic practitioner is mostly concerned with conserving and continuing a tradition almost forgotten by modern man.24 The reporter describes her serving homemade bracket fungus tea and crafting her own, wool clothes collection, adorned with “artic” symbols. In Magic Magazine (Halling 2013a), Ebeltoft is again portrayed in natural, Northern surroundings with drum, a wolf (!), and dressed in her colorful, handcrafted clothes. She says nature is holy and that she feels a strong affinity with animals. Although she is a leader of the congregation, she does not refer to herself as a shaman. Being a shaman is more like a profession—like a Christian priest in contrast with an ordinary Christian. “If you tread the natural religious, shamanistic path, you’re not automatically a shaman,” Ebeltoft holds (Halling 2013a: 17).25 A subsequent interview in the same magazine (Halling 2013b) portrays Sámi Anneli Guttorm, known from her participation in the television series and competition in “The 6th Sense,” on the same channel that broadcasts “The Power of the Spirits.” Both interviews are presented under the heading “Shamanism in the North.” Guttorm is also shown in natural surroundings in the North of Norway, dressed in Sámi traditional festive clothes. “With her Sami, colorful outfit she looks like a true shaman, but she doesn’t address herself so,” Halling writes (2013b:19), making a not-so-subtle equation between any traditionally adorned Sámi person and a shaman. Guttorm says she holds the ancestors and the old traditions in too high esteem to call herself a shaman, preferring to talk about drum healing, clairvoyance, mediumship, and Bach Flower Therapy. She employs the Sámi song tradition of joik, though, and says: “The power of the joik, the Sami culture, the use and understanding of nature, is natural and important to me. It has its own ‘rhythm’ that makes me whole and enables me to pass this on to others and to help them” (Halling 2013b:19).



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Mediumship, Neo-shamanism, and Female Entrepreneurship As these Norwegian examples confirm, the occulture consists of highly variegated concepts and practices, employed and passed on by those belonging to the centers or fringes of the field, in multiple ways. In addition to calling academic attention to the conflating of spiritism and shamanism, I have wanted to highlight tendencies that have to do with female stereotypes and female entrepreneurship. These areas are closely related, and mediumship and spiritism are practices dominated by women, both as performers and most notably as clients/consumers. What strategies are employed when women identifying with neo-shamanism mediate their considerations and choices? Can we understand their narratives as typical, spiritual “bricolage” and examples of spiritual entrepreneurship, as well as strategies of widening the scope of action for women? This seems to be the case, but the different actors presented here reveal the situation to be multidimensional and paradoxical, where strategies and narratives may be contradictory. Tendencies to be noted are, in the case of Tørum, her active use of the label shaman to provide, as is exemplified by and explained in her autobiography, weight and authenticity to her practice as an alternative coach, light worker, and bringer of a new era. She presents herself as someone with an “energetic,” spiritual heritage and power stemming from both the Inca Empire and from Native American Indians. This can be said to be quite an “ordinary” move within New Age spirituality, but Tørum is obviously bent on highlighting her shamanic identity in a situation where her mediumistic and clairvoyant work has given her ample fame and fans. In Tørum’s view, she is a shaman first and foremost, but she insists on staging her ladylike though tough looks as central (“high heels” being the second characteristic presented in the title of her autobiography). Bendriss’s strategy differs. She does not stress her shamanic inclinations, avoids the title, and one has to search her website before realizing she employs such techniques. Her shamanistic courses are not even ­presented as such, but the description and photos on her website, and the framing of her activities elsewhere (in books and interviews), reveal a shamanic identity—grounded, as in Tørum’s case, in previous lives and even on a cellular level, within a holistic, energetic paradigm. Her ladylike looks have also become a brand for her and is always commented upon in interviews. As representatives of “high-heeled” shamanism, it seems as if the shamanistic elements have allowed them to include what is culturally conceived of as raw, dark, and “primitive” aspects traditionally contrary to the Western, bourgeois, female role, and hardly part of the stereotype of the female medium either.

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The “Northern,” female, shamanistic representatives represent different narratives that still hold a certain familiarity. They both relate to a “Northern” tradition as something to be felt or seen in nature, in the landscape and culture of Northern Norway. They are presented—as women from different ethnic groups—as feminine and/or with their femininity stressed, posing in dresses that are given ample attention in the mediation of their positions and practices. Whereas, Sámi Guttorm derives her fame from her appearance in the television series “The 6th Sense,” Norwegian Ebeltoft is well known from the (re)mediation of the public acceptance of The Shamanistic Congregation. As opposed to the self-staging of the celebrity medium-shamans, it is unclear whether these Northern representatives would themselves have chosen to stress their “femininity” in a medialization of themselves, neither of whom focuses on self-staging in their respective webpages.26 Ebeltoft and Guttorm represent a diversity of discourses; their appearances in the Magic Magazine reveal yet another aspect, since this magazine promotes mediumship and has its origin in the “Magic Circle” divination center. The magazine’s attention to (Northern) shamanism points to the same development as seen in Harner’s latest publication, which was so scorned by Eriksson. The anonymous, clairvoyant, shamanistic therapists referred from my fieldwork might be said to represent a transition between the high-profile and high-heeled medium-­ shamans with their urban, Norwegian background, and the more traditionally pagan (yet multifaceted) representatives from up North. The anonymous practitioner represents a larger group than the celebrities, of course, but the famous, mediated figures with their conceptions and practices comprise complex interplays with the wider field of (oc)culture, as thematized by media experts like Hjarvard. Jorunn stresses neither femininity nor (Sámi/Northern) ethnicity in her shamanic practice, but rather connects experiences in the wild—and experiences with death and communication with the dead—as reasons for relating to shamanism. As an informant, however, she has stressed her skills as a spiritual entrepreneur and, as a former business woman, her experiences and strategies that undermine gender stereotypes. It might be easier for ethnic Norwegians to relate to culturally more distant groups, ethnicities, and practices, than to those which are culturally and geographically proximate. However, Jorunn’s therapeutic cooperation with—and appearances together with—her Sámi partner, point to the relative closeness of Sámi neo-shamanism with “general” neo-shamanism (understood as core shamanism in the Harner sense, or the “typical” Native American, occulturated one) in a Norwegian context. For some, there is closeness but no mixing or synthesizing, for others, there is an effort to see the connection between the Sámi, Nordic, and other (neo-) shamanic traditions.



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Being a medium in Norway, is a risky business when it comes to cultural credibility and legitimacy. Not even royal status can save a person claiming to communicate with the dead, as popular as this practice might be—the Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise experienced a tremendous, negative attention when doing so in 2010 (Kalvig 2013b). Adding shamanism to mediumship can give a practitioner a more diverse platform, in an etic sense, whereas in an emic sense it has to do with the felt connection to what is considered ancient, authentic, powerful ways of meaningfully and therapeutically relating to a multidimensional reality. However, entering shamanistic discourse activates another range of evaluations and considerations. Controversy prevails here, as it does concerning spiritism in contemporary spirituality and culture. For the women discussed in this chapter, the reasons for employing, or partly employing, the notion and practice of shamanism and the title of shaman are something connecting them to the past, the present, the body, health, place, and landscape. In so doing, they add to or widen a gendered notion of who they are, directly or indirectly, and demonstrate the intention of defining themselves in a subjectively oriented time and place, as women and as spiritual entrepreneurs.

Notes 1. Original title: Sjaman på høye hæler: Min reise i ukjent landskap (Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2012). 2. I employ a variety of terms for the sociocultural fields in question; occulture is a term discussed by Partridge, which underscores the blending of culture and the occult “broadened to include a vast spectrum of beliefs and practices” (Partridge 2004: 70). “Alternativity” also delineates the field of alternative spirituality in a broad sense, with slightly different associations than those given by “occult” connotations, and is meant to point to marginal, dissident, and “alternative” voices within, for example, the Norwegian Christian church, as well. 3. I also use the form (neo-) shamanism when more emic positions are discussed. 4. Duppils (2010) represents openly sympathetic attitudes toward this field; cf. her blog in alternative newspaper (http://www.tidningennara.se/SaraDuppils/ blogg) and personal blog (http://saraduppils.blogspot.no/). 5. Wallis (2003: 30) also favors the term neo-shamanisms in the plural, because these may “embody a number of socio-political locations, including countercultural, being socially integrated, modern and postmodern.” 6. The congregation, in Norwegian Sjamanistisk Forbund, was acknowledged as a religious community by the Norwegian authorities in March 2012 and is the first and only shamanistic congregation in Norway. 7. From the Harner website: “The Foundation’s programs in core shamanism are particularly intended for Westerners to reacquire access to their rightful ­spiritual

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heritage through quality workshops and training courses. Training in core shamanism includes teaching students to alter their consciousness through classic shamanic non-drug techniques such as sonic driving, especially in the form of repetitive drumming, so that they can discover their own hidden spiritual resources, transform their lives, and learn how to help others” (“Core shamanism,” http://www.shamanism.org/workshops/coreshamanism.html). 8. For an analysis of the variations of neo-shamanism on a global scale, see Sanson 2009. 9. Regarding the intersections of neo-shamanism and paganism: the neo-­ shamanic current is the theme proper in key contributions like Wallis (2003) with various pagan traditions being investigated, whereas Strmiska (2005) deals with each of these paganisms accordingly, with Lindquist (1997) and Blain (2002) providing in-depth analyses of a neo-shamanism conflated with Northern heathenry. 10. “Annette Høst,” http://www.shamanism.dk/hvemah.htm. 11. Ibid. 12. In Kalvig 2012a, I compare the modern medium with the volva, within the analytical frames of séances functioning as commemorative as well as divinatory means. 13. Jörgen I. Eriksson, “Om att överskrida Michael Harners core shamanism,” http://www.norrshaman.net/Harner.htm. 14. Ibid. 15. See Kalvig (2009) for a more detailed analysis. 16. In Sámi language, and as a concept that has also been imported into Norwegian, to be under somebody’s evil spell (especially if thought to be caused by shamanic or “sorcery-competent” Sámi people), is called ganna, the noun being gand. 17. The TV serial has had nearly half a million viewers on a weekly basis (in a country of five million inhabitants) (Kalvig 2009: 48). 18. “Gro-Helen Tørum,” http://www.lifeartacademy.com/om-oss/gro-helentoerum/. 19. Lena Ranehag, “Kursutbud i Medial utveckling,” http://www.faithcure.com/ Mediala-Kurser-Inneh-ll.html. 20. Interestingly, Tørum is reluctant to title herself a healer, as conventional as this label might be, “for I feel a great respect towards those powers that are to be mastered, in order to heal others. At the same time, healing is very simple to me; it’s what we all do when comforting a child” (Tørum 2012: 124). 21. Kari Flaata Halling, “Nærkontakt med åndeverdenen,” http://magic.no/magicmagasin/reportasjer/narkontakt-med-andeverdenen?tlf=79000450. 22. Ibid. 23. Lilli Bendriss, “Urkraft,” http://www.lillibendriss.com/urkraft.html; and “Dream Journey,” http://www.lillibendriss.com/dream-journey.html.



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24. http://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/article5970091.ece.: Tårnesvik, Geir: «Nå er sjamanisme godkjent som religion». 25. Ebeltoft and The Shamanistic Congregation are mildly scorned in the website and alleged activist group New Age Frauds Plastic Shamans (NAFPS): “Topic: Shamanic Association of Tromsø,” http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index. php?topic=2850.0;prev_next=prev#new. 26. Cf. Anneli Guttorm, “Om meg,” http://algu.vpweb.no/Om-oss.html; and Lone Ebeltoft, Alveskogen Design, http://www.alveskogen.com/alveskogen.htm (Ebeltoft, who has not got a site about shamanism or therapy in particular, but about her “pagan” design and clothes).

Bibliography Bendriss, Lilli. 2010. Gaven. Sellebakk: Galileo. Blain, Jenny. 2002. Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in North European Paganism. London: Routledge. Bolter, J. David, and Richard Grusin. 1999. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Castaneda, Carlos. 1970. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. New York: Penguin Books. ———. 1972. Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan. New York: Simon and Schuster. Duppils, Sara. 2010. Hemsökta platser? En religionspsykologisk tolkning av platsbunden entitetkontinuitet. Uppsala: Swedish Science Press. Eliade, Mircea. [1951] 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Eriksson, Jörgen I. 2012. Rune Magic & Shamanism: Original Nordic Knowledge from Mother Earth. Umeå: Norrshaman. Greenwood, Susan. 2005. The Nature of Magic: An Anthropology of Consciousness. Oxford: Berg. ———. 2009. The Anthropology of Magic. Oxford: Berg. Grusin, Richard. 2010. Premediation: Affect and Mediality after 9/11. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Halling, Kari Flaata. 2013a. “Sjamanisme har alltid ligget mitt hjerte nær.” Magic Magasin, no. 1: 16–18. ———. 2013b. “Jeg har stor respekt for mine forfedre og de gamle tradisjoner.” Magic Magasin, no. 1: 19–21. Harner, Michael. 1980. The Way of the Shaman. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. ———. 2013. Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Hjarvard, Stig. 2008. En verden af medier: medialiseringen af politik, sprog, religion og leg. Fredriksberg: Samfundslitteratur.

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Hodges, Bob. 2006. “The Goddess Tour: Spiritual Tourism/Postmodern Pilgrimage in Search of Atlantis.” In Popular Spiritualities: The Politics of Contemporary Enchantment, edited by Lynne Hume and Kathleen McPhillips, 27–40. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Hume, Lynne, and Kathleen McPhillips, eds. 2006. Popular Spiritualities: The Politics of Contemporary Enchantment. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Kalvig, Anne. 2009. “TV Norge og Kanal FEM—den nye tids bodbringarar.” Dïn— tidsskrift for religion og kultur, no. 4: 45–63. ———. 2012. “Seansar og minnet om dei døde.” Kirke og kultur, no. 2: 128–141. ———. 2012b. “Alternativ folkemedisin? Om røter og nye skot på det sørvestlandske, holistiske helsefeltet”. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning, no.2: 45–62. ———. 2013. Åndeleg helse: Livssyn og menneskesyn hos alternative terapeutar. Kristiansand: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ———. 2013b. “Dødekontakt i Rogaland”. Kirke og Kultur, no 2: 132–145. Lindquist, Galina. 1997. Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-shamanism in Contemporary Sweden. Stockholm: Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University. Meyrowitz, Joshua. 1997. “Tre paradigmer i medieforskningen.” MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research 13, no. 26: 56–69. http://ojs.­ statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/mediekultur/article/view/1090/995. Partridge, Christopher. 2004. The Re-Enchantment of the West. Vol I. London: T&T Clark. Pizza, Murphy, and James R. Lewis, eds. 2009. Handbook of Contemporary Paganism. Leiden: Brill. Sanson, Dawne. 2009. “New/Old Spiritualities in the West: Neo-Shamans and NeoShamanism.” In Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, edited by Murphy Pizza and James R. Lewis, 433–462. Leiden: Brill. Strmiska, Michael F. ed. 2005. Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Tørum, Gro-Helen. 2012. Sjaman på høye hæler: Min reise i ukjent landskap. Oslo: Cappelen Damm. Tramacchi, Des. 2006. “Entheogens, Elves and Other Entities: Encountering the Spirits of Shamanic Plants and Substances.” In Popular Spiritualities: The Politics of Contemporary Enchantment, edited by Lynne Hume and Kathleen McPhillips, 91–104. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Wallis, Roy. 2003. Shamans/neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archeologies, and Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge. Wilson, David Gordon. 2013. Redefining shamanisms: spiritualist mediums and other traditional shamans as apprenticeship outcomes. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Woodhead, Linda, and Eeva Sointu. 2008. “Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47, no. 2: 259–276.

PART FOUR

Other Groups and Movements

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“Come on up, and I will show thee” heaven’s gate as a postmodern group George D. Chryssides And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy . . . clothed in sackcloth. . . . And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city. . . . And the people . . . shall see their dead bodies three days and an half. . . . And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered them and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell . . . and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God in heaven. Revelation: 11:3–13

the enigmatic nature of the Book of Revelation has enabled a variety of improbable interpretations. Most people, and certainly all serious academic interpreters of the book, would agree that St. John the Divine was not talking about spaceships, the Hale-Bopp comet, the Heaven’s Gate leaders Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, and how to gain transition from the realm of human existence to “the next level above human.” Why, then, should an iconoclastic interpretation of the book by two leaders, both devoid of any formal qualifications that enabled them to pronounce authoritatively on its meaning, not only gain credence by their followers, but persuade them to commit collective suicide, in the certainty that this interpretation was true?

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Mass suicide can be difficult to comprehend, particularly in a group like Heaven’s Gate, which was under no immediate threat, unlike the Peoples Temple or the Branch Davidians at Waco. Those of us who are in positions of authority know only too well how difficult it can be to secure compliance, even on small matters; how, then, could Applewhite apparently gain such a hold over his followers as to make such a supreme sacrifice? This chapter explores the question by considering the worldview of Heaven’s Gate, and how Applewhite’s interpretation, strange as it might seem to those outside the organization, succeeded in gaining credence. In what follows I do not intend to take up issues such as brainwashing or charismatic leadership. While I acknowledge that many religious groups exercise psychological pressure on their members, “brainwashing” is an imprecise and emotive term, lacking a clear or agreed definition, and brainwashing theories were largely discredited in Eileen Barker’s important study The Making of a Moonie. Robert Balch, who covertly joined Heaven’s Gate in 1975, together with his collaborator David Taylor, concluded that seekers were more inclined to come into the movement through a process of “social drift,” while retention within the movement was a result of “social influence” (Balch 1995). Likewise, charismatic leadership is a problematic concept. I have elsewhere argued that there are importantly different types of charismatic leader, and that charisma is better regarded not as an inherent quality of a leader but as something that is generated by a group as much as by the supposedly charismatic leader (Chryssides 2001b). I know of no one, apart from the members of Heaven’s Gate, who regarded Applewhite as remotely charismatic, and the members of the fated community were not impressionable young people: in fact only two members were in their twenties and the average age was 47. If we want to understand Heaven’s Gate, we must examine the group’s worldview, and I shall do this by arguing that the group exhibited a number of features associated with postmodernity. Postmodernity, of course, differs from postmodernism, the former being the set of characteristics that are supposedly attributable to humanity’s present condition, while the latter consists of the ideas of various thinkers such as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-François Lyotard. The present study will therefore draw on the features of postmodernity, rather than endorse the ideas of any of the postmodernist writers. Regarding methodology, I intend to outline the key ideas from the Bible, principally—but not exclusively—the Book of Revelation, on which the group drew. I shall sketch out some of the issues arising from these passages that would typically elicit comment by present-day biblical scholars, contrasting these with Applewhite’s interpretation. The Heaven’s Gate group is, of course,



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no longer in existence to corroborate or comment on interpretations: the one survivor, Chuck Humphrey (known as Rkkody, pronounced “Ricody”) committed suicide a year later, in an attempt to join the rest of the “crew.” Sources that remain are twofold: the Heaven’s Gate website, which has been mirrored and is still accessible on the Internet, and some early accounts of the organization in the 1970s, written by Balch and Taylor.

The History of Heaven’s Gate A brief outline of the history of Heaven’s Gate, leading up to the tragic events of 1997, may be useful at this juncture. The organization was founded by Marshall Herff Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985). Applewhite was the son of a Presbyterian minister, and decided to study philosophy, gaining his degree in 1952. Intending to follow in his father’s footsteps, he embarked on a theology course at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, at Richmond, Virginia. He soon abandoned his studies, deciding to embark on a musical career, and completed a Master’s degree in Music at the University of Colorado. He held two ­university posts: first at the University of Alabama, and subsequently at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, from which he was dismissed in 1970. Applewhite had experienced problems regarding his sexual orientation: he was married, but had a number of homosexual affairs. In 1965 he left his wife, and the couple were divorced in 1968. His father’s death in 1971 compounded Applewhite’s emotional problems, and it was in a state of confusion and depression that he met Bonnie Nettles in 1972. Nettles was born a Baptist, but was little interested in mainstream Christianity. A member of the Houston Theosophical Society, she believed in the existence of the Masters and attended a meditation group which claimed to channel discarnate spirits. The circumstances of her meeting Applewhite are unclear. According to most accounts, Nettles was a pediatric nurse, who was filling in at a hospital, where Applewhite was seeking a “cure” for his homosexuality. Other accounts state that Applewhite had a heart condition and had a near death experience in the course of his treatment. One source suggests he was simply a visitor to the hospital, while another suggests that he suffered the more mundane ailment of hemorrhoids. I do not propose to adjudicate on these competing explanations for the meeting. Whatever happened, Applewhite and Nettles established a rapport. Both had recently experienced personal traumas and regarded their meeting as divinely ordained. Their ­subsequent relationship was not a sexual one; they believed that it was somehow connected with fulfilling biblical prophecy and providing some new

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understanding of the world and human destiny. They came to attribute their personal traumas to the possession of their bodies by “Next Level” minds. After spending some six weeks at a Texas ranch, the two decided to take their message “on the road.” After a brief encounter with Ananda Marga, which did not appeal to them, they reached the conclusion that they were the “two witnesses” mentioned in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 11:1–2) and announced their identity on August 11, 1973. They hired a car and travelled through Canada, buying their necessities with a credit card, which Nettles had “borrowed.” Their technique of propagating their message appears largely to have consisted of leaving notes in churches announcing that the “two witnesses” had arrived. At one point, The Two alighted on a New Age center, only to discover two members of the community already claiming to be the “The Two.” When Applewhite failed to return the hire car, and the police discovered Nettles’s credit card fraud, The Two were arrested and served prison sentences. It was during his six-month period in prison that Applewhite appeared to shape his theology. From this point onward, there was little reference to the occult, but more on UFOs and the Next Level Above Human. Applewhite taught that there would soon be a “demonstration”—empirical proof of the existence of extraterrestrials, who would arrive to collect their crew. Having been released from prison, The Two met up again, and, having convinced themselves that their mission was somehow connected with extraterrestrials and space travel, they attempted to select a “crew.” This time, they decided to organize a series of public meetings, producing advertisements, the first of which read as follows: UFO’S Why they are here. Who they have come for. When they will leave. NOT a discussion of UFO sightings or phenomena Two individuals say they were sent from the level above human, and are about to leave the human level and literally (physically) return to that next evolutionary level in a spacecraft (UFO) within months! “The Two” will discuss how the transition from the human level to the next level is accomplished, and when this may be done. This is not a religious or philosophical organization recruiting membership. However, the information has already prompted many individuals to devote their total energy to the transitional process. If you have ever entertained the idea that there may be a real, PHYSICAL



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level beyond the Earth’s confines, you will want to attend this meeting. (Cited in Chryssides 1999: 69) The group assumed various names. Applewhite called it the “Anonymous Sexaholics Celibate Church,” but perhaps unsurprisingly this name was dropped after a very short period. The press gave it the name “Human Individual Metamorphosis,” which was Applewhite’s jargon for the evolutionary process which their crew were expected to undergo in order to arrive at the Next Level. “The Two” initially assumed the names of Guinea and Pig—an allusion to their belief that they were participants in a cosmic experiment, designed by the inhabitants of the Next Level. The Two invariably abandoned conventional human names, in order to emphasize their “Next Level” identity and, being “The Two,” their names—which changed through time—were invariably those of matching pairs, such as Bo and Peep, Do and Ti (or Te), and even Nincom and Poop. Nettles and Applewhite organized a total of 130 such meetings in various locations in the United States and Canada. At one meeting—at Waldport, near Eugene, Oregon, in September 1975—two hundred people turned up to hear Bo and Peep, and thirty-three joined, giving up their attachments to the human world. At the group’s height some two hundred followers accepted The Two’s message. In 1975, however, Applewhite and Nettles split the group up into small cells, assigning each member a partner, and sending them to various locations throughout the United States, while Applewhite and Nettles withdrew from public view. It was during this period that the really stringent membership requirements were imposed. Members were not allowed contact with family or friends; reading newspapers and watching television were forbidden; members had to renounce drugs and alcohol; men had to shave off their beards and women had to give up wearing jewelry; sex was prohibited; and friendships and conventional forms of socializing were to be given up. Members were required to assume new names, all of which had to end in “-ody.” This austere period, which lasted until February 1976, resulted in mass apostasy, and the organization lost approximately half its members. In February 1976, Applewhite and Nettles reappeared, now known as Ti and Do, and that summer the group moved to a remote camp near Laramie, Wyoming. Nettles at first informed the group that they would receive a “demonstration” of the events The Two had predicted—by which she meant a firm sighting of a spacecraft—but the group was later told that this “demonstration” was cancelled. (Nettles seems to have made a practice of tantalizing the group with such prospects, which did not materialize.) The group was then divided into small units, or “star clusters,” each named after a stellar constellation. It was at this time that “uniforms” began to be worn, consisting of a nylon anorak

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and hood, making members appear rather like Christian monks. In 1978 the group’s finances took a dramatic turn for the better. The exact details are unclear. An ex-member informant of Balch’s mentioned a legacy of $300,000 that the leaders inherited; John R. Hall, on the other hand, attributes the group’s financial success to external jobs that were taken up by members, principally in auto repair, technical writing, and computing. (It is an agreed fact that members had been undertaking external work immediately before the communal suicide; some of the group had expertise in web design.) The progress of the Heaven’s Gate group from 1979 onward is not so well documented. Balch and Taylor left the group in 1975, and Balch stopped collecting information in the early 1980s. However, we know of two events which were of key significance. Nettles was diagnosed as having cancer in the early 1980s, and in 1983 had to undergo surgery, in which one of her eyes was removed. She died in 1985. Applewhite’s interpretation of this event was that she had abandoned her earthly body in order to return to the Next Level to await the rest of the group. Applewhite remained to lead the group singlehandedly. The second event of import was in 1992, when the group resurfaced publicly, this time with the name “Total Overcomers Anonymous.” Despite their previous claim that the crew was complete, they made a “final offer” the following year, putting out a satellite broadcast, and taking out a full-page advertisement in USA Today, part of which read: “The Earth’s present ‘civilization’ is about to be recycled—‘spaded under.’ Its inhabitants are refusing to evolve. The ‘weeds’ have taken over the garden and disturbed its usefulness beyond repair” (USA Today, May 27, 1993; quoted in Balch 1995: 163). This final call was essentially for the “lost sheep” to re-establish contact with the group. About twenty of them did and were readmitted. This final period of the group’s life was characterized by renewed vigor. There were renewed attempts to curb sensual desire, and when some male members found this unduly difficult, they discussed the possibility of castration. Seven members and Applewhite himself underwent surgery. The group continued to proclaim that the Earth was about to be “spaded under,” and that humanity had a “last chance to advance beyond human,” but this time with a much great urgency than ever before. Balch comments that one of their advertisements “had an apocalyptic tone that was much more dramatic than anything I had heard in 1975” (Balch 1995: 163; cited in Hall et al. 2000: 170). The final incidents are well known. Applewhite and his followers rented Rancho Santa Fe, a mansion situated some thirty miles to the north of San Diego. Members of the group continued with their computer consultancy work,



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under the name “Higher Source,” and led a highly regimented quasi-monastic life. Reports about the Hale-Bopp Comet began in November 1996, and rumors of another object behind it were propagated by Courtney Brown, a university professor who had written a book Cosmic Voyage. Brown claimed to have communicated with psychics who affirmed that this object was a large alien spacecraft. Brown averred that it was arriving, not for the purpose of invading Earth, but to facilitate “galactic evolution.” Members of Heaven’s Gate took a keen interest, studying the skies and listening to reports of the comet’s progress. The third week in March was Holy Week in the Christian calendar, and the group requested that there should be no visitors. The week was spent recording farewell videos and preparing for the transition. They packed suitcases, put money and identification in their pockets, and committed suicide, as planned.

The Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation, as well as a few other biblical passages, featured significantly in Applewhite’s teachings. Although seemingly “scientific,” UFO religions are remarkably biblical in their teachings. Some, like Unarius (the first UFO religion to gain attention, founded in 1954 by Ernest L. Norman) and the Aetherius Society (founded by George King in 1955) place biblical teachings in a wider world-ecumenical religious context, as did Erich von Däniken, in his well-known and influential Chariots of the Gods? (1969). Others have focused more exclusively on the Bible, for example, the Raelian Movement (founded by Claude Vorilhon in 1974) and Heaven’s Gate. In what follows, I propose to examine the interpretations of the “Two Witnesses” passage in Revelation that are generally found in mainstream Christian academic writing, and then to compare them with the meanings which members of Heaven’s Gate ascribed to it. Unsurprisingly, there are significant differences in mainstream scholarly interpretations of the Revelation passage. The book’s historical context, and hence its dating, are contested, some scholars favoring a date around 68 c.e., when the Roman Emperor Nero was persecuting the Jewish and Christian communities, while others favor a later date, between 92 and 96 c.e., during Domitian’s rule. Although much used by fundamentalist Christian apocalyptists, it is not at all certain that the bulk of the text was written with a Christian readership in mind. It may have been originally a Jewish and not a Christian apocalyptic work, lightly edited, with the insertion of a few specifically Christian interpolations. One example is found in the passage under discussion (Revelation 11:8), in which the clause “where also their Lord was

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crucified” follows the phrase “the great city” (the passage is omitted from the opening quotation here): this could easily be a Christian insertion into a text that reads very adequately without the expression. The central spiritual figure in the book is “the Lamb,” whom Christians popularly assume to be Jesus. However, this is never explicitly stated, and there is only one identification of Jesus as “the Lamb of God” by John (almost certainly not the same author as that of Revelation) in his gospel: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Although the author makes it sound like a personal vision in which John gains access to heaven and sees God’s throne, this is more likely a literary device, serving as a framework for the book’s message. Revelation is certainly a composite work, not something revealed in one single moment, when the author was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10), since much of it is drawn—not to say plagiarized—from Hebrew scripture and Jewish apocalyptic writings of the inter-testamental period. Indeed the composite nature of the work may well be the cause of apparent discrepancies that relate to dating. The passage under discussion is situated in the center of the book and is a pivotal chapter. The main substance of the book up to this point has been a vision given to John of a door opening up into heaven, through which he was taken, and afforded a view of God’s throne. He sees a scroll, which has seven seals firmly protecting it. The “Lamb” sits on God’s right hand: he is unusual in having seven horns and seven eyes, and he looked “as if he had been slain” (Revelation 5:4). The ensuing chapters describe the progressive opening of the seals, and this is followed by seven angels successively blasting their trumpets. By the end of the ninth chapter, the seventh angel is expected, but the text breaks off with a parenthetical chapter and a half (Revelation 10:1–11:14). Although it is probably an interpolation, it serves to increase the suspense before the seventh trumpet and the final opening of the scroll. In this hiatus, a “mighty angel,” who has a face like the sun, and legs like fiery pillars, presents John with a “little scroll.” John is asked to eat the scroll; this seemingly strange injunction is reminiscent of the prophet Ezekiel, who was given a similar command (Ezekiel 2:9–3:3). The importance of this seemingly strange instruction is that it heralds a prophetic message, which the prophet has quite literally had to “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.” John is then asked to measure God’s temple and altar; again, this harks back to Ezekiel, who has a vision of “a man whose appearance was like bronze” measuring the Temple area (Ezekiel 40). John is instructed not to measure the Court of the Gentiles, since they are excluded from God’s dwelling; we are to understand that they are either the Roman persecutors, or else the heretics



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that John has condemned earlier in this writing (Revelation 2:6, 14). The New Jerusalem will be designed without a Gentile court, thus ensuring their exclusion. “Two witnesses” will prophesy, reminding their hearers of the impending doom. The identity of “The Two” is crucial for understanding the passage (and of course Heaven’s Gate). Two witnesses were needed in order to accord with Jewish law, which required at least two witnesses in order to convict someone of a crime (Deuteronomy 19:15). This passage predicts either judgment on Rome for its persecution or on the Jews for their disobedience. The vast majority of commentators agree that the “two witnesses” are Moses and Elijah, being the personification of the Law and the Prophets, respectively. At the scene of Jesus’ transfiguration (Mark 9:2–13), Moses and Elijah appear as witnesses to attest God’s designation of Jesus as his Son. Both confronted the Israelites’ idolatry, as evidenced by Moses’ anger at the golden calf incident (Exodus 32) and Elijah’s admonition of Queen Jezebel (1 Kings 21:23–24). The reference to fire coming from their mouths to devour enemies is more obscure; the allusion may be to Elijah’s miraculous kindling of fire on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:16–39), although it is more difficult to find an incident relating to Moses. Some commentators suggest the allusion metaphorically relates to the plagues of Egypt, but it may refer to Moses’ fiery serpent ­(Numbers 21:8). The numerology in the chapter is not easy to decode. The passage refers to 42 months (11:2), 1,260 days (11:3), three and a half days (11:9, 11), and seven thousand people who are killed in the ensuing earthquake. The first three numbers are inherently connected: 42 months and 1,260 days both being three and a half years. Whatever the explanation, the numbers are derived from Daniel 12:7, an equally obscure passage in which Daniel asks the question, “How long will it be before these astonishing things are fulfilled?” and is told by “a man clothed in linen,” “It will be for a time, times and half a time” (Daniel 12:6). As Preston and Hanson (1962) point out, the significance of three and half may derive from its being half of the perfect number (seven), and hence appropriate to designate a period of duration of evil power. Certainly, both Daniel and John are speaking of a period of tribulation—John in fact calls it the “Great Tribulation” (Revelation 7:14)—and Daniel is probably alluding to the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus some two centuries previously. The period designated by the number “three and half” is, however, a period in which good will triumph over evil, and John speaks of the resurrection of the two witnesses, and their ascension into heaven, having been taken up into a cloud (Revelation 11:12) at the final end, followed by the ascent of God’s chosen ones, leaving the rest of humanity behind amidst total chaos and disaster.

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Heaven’s Gate’s Exegesis Scholarly interpretation of Revelation did not interest Nettles and Applewhite or their followers. Applewhite’s message lacked any formal theological vocabulary; the metaphors he used were of two main types. The first type are essentially derived from science fiction, especially TV series and films such as “Star Trek,” Star Wars, and E.T. Applewhite frequently refers to an “away team”—a concept used by the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise in “Star Trek” to refer to those who had temporarily left their spaceship to embark on a special mission. Applewhite used this term to refer to the space aliens who have left their home planet, and who were engaged in the mission of “tagging” designated individuals, with a view to enabling the transition from Earth to the Next Level Above Human. The second type of metaphor that Applewhite employed was horticultural. He spoke of the Earth as a “garden” which was now so smothered with weeds that it had to be “spaded under.” In order to be transported to the Next Level, “grafting” was needed: the members of Heaven’s Gate had to be “grafted” onto the two leaders, Nettles and Applewhite. Horticultural metaphors derive principally from the Bible, where Jesus speaks of himself as the “real vine” whose gardener was his father and whose branches were his disciples, deriving their power from Christ, the principal stem (John 15:1). Engrafting is a metaphor used by Paul to indicate how the Gentiles can become part of God’s covenant, which was originally given to the Jews (Romans 11:11–24). Parables of sowing seed, harvesting crops, uprooting weeds, and working in vineyards feature prominently in Jesus’ teaching. Some commentators have suggested that Applewhite used other sources, notably Hinduism and “Gnosticism.” Writing on behalf of the Dialog Center, Helle Meldgaard states, “The mythology of ‘Heaven’s Gate’ has echoes of both classical Hinduism, Christian ideas, and not least clear Gnostic traits” (Meldgaard, n.d.). It is unlikely that either of “The Two” read any Hindu texts, and the suggestion of a Hindu connection has angered several Hindu teachers (Brahmavidyananda 1997; Atmarupananda et al., n.d.). Catherine Wessinger suggests that their idea that the body was a suit of clothes, which the soul casts off upon death, comes from the Bhagavad Gita, possibly through Helena P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine. Even this is doubtful; the idea of the body as a suit of clothes is to be found in Plato’s Phaedo, which Applewhite would be likely to have encountered as a philosophy student. The influence of Gnosticism can be readily dismissed, too. Again, there is no evidence of ideas from either ancient Gnostics or modern revivalist



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groups that use the name. If “Gnosticism” is used in a generic sense to indicate that the Heaven’s Gate group believed in a higher level of existence to which only initiates could gain access, then any claim that the group is “Gnostic” is merely descriptive and gives no clue to any real or supposed influence. The group never used the term, and the notion of a “Next Level Above Human” can be easily accounted for by reference to ufology and science fiction: there is no need to look to Gnosticism for any explanation. Applewhite’s ideas can largely be accounted for in terms of his idiosyncratic understanding of the Bible. Applewhite’s reading of Revelation has some common elements with mainstream Christianity. There is an acknowledgment of two classes of people: those who are chosen to “ascend” and those who are left behind on the earth. He perceived those destined for the Next Level as being confronted by forces of evil—the Luciferians, in his terminology—who had misled humanity and created evil on the Earth, to the extent that it was now beyond any redemption. He acknowledged a period of tribulation that would anticipate the final culmination in which good would triumph over evil for those destined to proceed to the Next Level. His own distinctive interpretation of the passage is fairly evident. First, there is the identity of “The Two,” which, as I have already mentioned, was none other than the two leaders Nettles and Applewhite. Importantly, the interpretation of the passage is physicalistic rather than spiritual. “Come up here,” means literal ascent: as Applewhite taught, heaven is not a metaphysical realm, but rather the Next Level is located within physical space, to be reached by the spacecraft that was coming to collect its crew. The reference to overpowering and killing (11:7) again is literal: the only way to gain access to the spacecraft is through death, three and a half days after which a resurrection and ascension would follow. As events turned out, the picture of the rest of humanity gazing on the dead bodies was fulfilled in the enormous media coverage that the group received. Mention of earthquakes, particularly in the San Diego area, could understandably be taken as literal, since San Diego County is located amidst a number of earthquake faults, and the whole area of California is particularly prone to seismic disturbance. (Indeed, this is sometimes adduced as an explanation for the popularity of apocalyptic sects in that region.) The reference to the three and a half days is nonetheless associated with Jesus. Applewhite taught that there were several windows of opportunity for human beings to ascend to the Next Level, and that such windows appeared approximately every two thousand years. It is not without significance that the year 1997 was two thousand years on from the year 4 b.c.e., a date commonly

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given for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. As well as being a reference to Applewhite’s “crew,” the verse also refers to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Applewhite taught that Jesus was a “tagged” human individual, born of a human mother but conceived by an extraterrestrial. The purpose of his appearance on earth was to show how it was possible to change one’s physical body “into a body of the kingdom of heaven through a natural process” (Steiger and Hewes 1997: 179; emphasis in original). This new body had remarkable properties: for example, it appeared to be capable of suddenly appearing and vanishing, and was able to pass through closed doors. However, it was still a body of flesh and blood, as evidenced by Jesus’ ability to eat and drink, and his invitation to Thomas to feel his wounded side (Steiger and Hewes 1997: 180). The final incident in Jesus’ life was his ascension, in which it is recounted that a cloud took him back up into heaven; predictably, Applewhite took “cloud” to mean “spaceship,” and hence Jesus’ ascension was his reclamation by the space crew from the Next Level. Just as Jesus obtained his kingdom of heaven through death and resurrection, and forty days later was taken back up into the Next Level, so Applewhite’s “crew” could expect to receive their new bodies by their own death and subsequent resurrection, after which their new “kingdom of heaven” bodies would be taken up into the spacecraft that awaited them.

Postmodern Analysis Although such an interpretation of the Bible would be laughed out of court by mainstream scholars, Applewhite was not theologically illiterate, having experienced some formal training in theology, albeit brief, as mentioned above. It is unlikely that he formally studied the Book of Revelation, but at least he would be aware of the kind of approach that was characteristic of mainstream Christian scholarship. Why, then, did he offer an interpretation of parts of the Bible to which no reputable scholar would give the slightest credence? What follows is somewhat more exploratory than what has gone before. I intend to analyze the reasons for Heaven’s Gate’s distinctive interpretations of the Book of Revelation by using the concept of postmodernity. It is important not to confuse postmodernity with postmodernism. The latter is a school of thought, or—more accurately—a number of related currents of thinking (one hesitates to say theories, since postmodernism typically rejects overarching theory) associated with various key thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-François Lyotard. Postmodernity is the condition which is attributed to late twentieth-century and early twenty-firstcentury society.



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James Beckford identifies four key features of postmodernity:

1. A refusal to regard positivistic, rationalistic, instrumental criteria as the sole or exclusive standard of worthwhile knowledge. 2. A willingness to combine symbols from disparate codes or frameworks of meaning, even at the cost of disjunctions and eclecticism. 3. A celebration of spontaneity, fragmentation, superficiality, irony, and playfulness. 4. A willingness to abandon the search for overarching or triumphalist myths, narratives, or frameworks of knowledge. (Beckford 1992: 19; cited in Woodhead and Heelas 2000: 271) Beckford’s first set of criteria are plainly evident in the Heaven’s Gate worldview. Like the vast majority of new religions, its worldview had an internal coherence, and hence, it might be argued, a rationality of its own. Nonetheless, Applewhite’s methods of biblical interpretation were such as would be totally rejected by any serious student of the Bible. For a start, he seems to pay no regard to the quality of the English translation. At times he uses the King James Version (1611), which is now seldom used in mainstream churches, and which would be judged totally inappropriate for providing an accurate rendering of the original texts. At other times, and more usually, he uses the Amplified Bible, sometimes including its amplified glosses on the translation, and at other times omitting them for no obvious reason. Although Heaven’s Gate may appear to be an “empirical” religion, having dispensed with supernatural entities such as gods, the idea of a “demonstration” is something from which Nettles in particular held back. Members never became party to a sighting of the alien spacecraft, and even at the scenario of the communal suicide, belief in the existence a craft hiding behind the HaleBopp comet was only accepted on Applewhite’s authority. Followers were therefore not allowed to be wholly empirical in their reception of The Two’s message, and firm verification was discouraged. The group’s synthesis of different frameworks of meaning is interesting. Heaven’s Gate was not the first group to have combined ufology with the Bible. As I have stated, this had already been done by several UFO religions. Unlike organizations such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have sought to expound the Book of Revelation systematically, and indeed to harmonize its ideas with the entirety of all the other books of Judeo-­ Christian scripture, Applewhite made no attempt to explain the book systematically, to discuss its relationship with other parts of scriptures, or

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indeed to study it as a whole. The totality of his exegesis consisted of using a very small number of verses of Revelation for his own purposes, and combining them with his other cosmological ideas about spacecraft and beings from the Next Level. With regard to the second feature of postmodernity, eclecticism, Applewhite pieced together fragments of information from a variety of disparate sources. The idea of combining biblical exegesis with belief in space aliens is, of course, not new, and has its pedigree in organizations like Unarius and the Aetherius Society, and, more popularly, in the writings of Erich von Däniken. However, Applewhite showed no interest in making his ideas part of a school of thought or in developing a philosophical or theological system to legitimate them. Unlike certain new religious movements, such as the Unification Church or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), the group was uninterested in developing a way of thinking that was capable of being defended in academic circles. Consistent with postmodernity, there were no “grand theories” to explain or legitimate, or inherent connections between the disparate ideas, only fragments blended together. The phenomenon is somewhat reminiscent of the well-known advertisement which associates a man smoking a cigar with Bach’s Air on a G-String: there is no intrinsic connection, but they are drawn together for the advertiser’s own immediate purpose. The third feature of postmodernity (celebration of spontaneity, fragmentation, superficiality, irony, and playfulness) may initially seem inappropriate on account of the tragic events that brought Heaven’s Gate to its end. Although the members themselves were subject to a highly structured existence within the organization, and exercised no originality or spontaneity of their own, but thoroughly complied with Ti and Do’s instructions, Ti and Do were themselves unpredictable and spontaneous, changing the group’s structure as it progressed, issuing sudden instructions for members to convene at Wyoming, and teaching a message from Judeo-Christian scripture that was largely Applewhite’s own creation. A degree of playfulness and frivolity can be perceived, too, in the adoption of the various silly names by the leaders and their notion that affairs on the planet Earth are not intrinsically valuable but are the results of a failed experiment by extraterrestrials. The final notion—the abandonment of triumphalist and overarching myths—can be demonstrated in a number of ways. First, Applewhite was not seeking a form of scriptural exegesis that was valid for all time but only for the “here and now.” It is not an exegesis that looks for the original meaning of a set of doctrines or a sacred text, traces its meaning through time, and perceives itself as standing within a continuous unbroken tradition.



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A feature of “modernism” is the attempt to analyze narratives diachronically rather than synchronically. For example, students of Christianity are typically taught to understand the Nicene Creed by examining the early debates between Arius and Athanasius, the early “ecumenical” councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon; the meaning of Greek philosophical concepts such as ousia (being or substance), homoousia (of the same being), and homoiousia (of like substance), and so on. The scholar is meant to look at the origins in order to ascertain the meaning. This activity is not confined to Christian theology, but belongs to a variety of academic disciplines. For example, in music the subject of musicology has been employed to ascertain what an “authentic” performance of a piece of music ought to be like—“authentic” meaning a definitive performance in the way the composer originally intended. Close examination has therefore been given to the musical conventions of the composer’s time, establishing the true text, free from editorial interpolations, and often ensuring that the original instruments (or at least replicas) were employed in the performance. The underlying rationale of this thinking was that there were components of meaning: the author’s meaning and the user’s meaning. Ideally, one should prize off the latter, leaving the former behind in its “pure” form. This way of thought underlies the phenomenological method in religious studies, in which early proponents such as Gerard van der Leeuw advocated epochē—the “holding back” or “bracketing” of one’s assumptions in order to achieve “eidetic vision,” or the perception of the pure form of the phenomenon, unclouded by one’s own prejudices and preconceptions. Subsequent thinking has indicated that such a quest is an impossibility. As Bakhtin and others have suggested, the knower is inextricably in the known. This is all the more true of religious communities than of scholars: the latter professedly aim to approach texts diachronically as well as synchronically, but in the case of religious communities, a diachronic approach to texts can often be positively unhelpful. The Heaven’s Gate group was not a community of scholars examining the Book of Revelation against the history of early Jewish and Christian persecution, but a community that used selected texts to reinforce their own particular worldview. Given the presuppositions of Heaven’s Gate, the Book of Revelation appropriately reinforced the ideas of two leaders having been specially selected for the important mission of bringing together the “tagged” individuals—their “crew”—and enabling them to find the spacecraft that supposedly awaited them. The injunction to “Come on up” could therefore be interpreted as entailing physical ascension rather than metaphysical transformation.

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The practice of reinterpreting texts to suit one’s particular set of doctrines is not, of course, unprecedented. Arguably, early Christian thinkers did substantially the same with Jewish texts, construing many as cryptic prophecies foretelling their newly announced messiah. Understandably, present-day Jewish writers such as Michael Hilton, Hyam Maccoby, and others protest that such interpretations often wrench the text out of its context, doing violence to its original meaning. No doubt they are right, but meanings are adapted within religious communities, who put their own key doctrines into the texts, rather than bracketing them and trying to ascertain the author’s original meaning. To take an analogy, there is a difference between buying a historical building, which one must preserve, museum-like, in its authentic form, and buying a home in which one intends to reside, making the necessary adaptations for one’s personal convenience and comfort. Traditionally the scholar is more like the museum curator, attempting to preserve the authentic original form; whereas, the follower of a religion is more like a homeowner, who adapts and makes changes as necessary. It therefore follows that understanding a religious community involves more than an understanding of its texts, as traditionally understood. As Wittgenstein argued, “the meaning of a word is its use in language” ([1953] 1963: I, 43), and to understand the meaning of any discourse one must understand the “language game” that is being played, and the “form of life” that is associated with the discourse. It is the community who ultimately decides what its religious texts mean, even if such texts are borrowed (as is often the case) from a different community that existed at a previous time and place in human history. Biblical scholars are now increasingly emphasizing the notion of “reader criticism” as a tool for understanding the meaning of a text, contending that in previous periods there has been somewhat too much emphasis on the background of the original author and his or her community, to the exclusion of those who have used the texts. In some cases, such as Jewish scripture, there can be more than one category of user; hence, interpreting Jewish prophetic writing can involve ascertaining how Jewish and Christian communities alike have regarded a particular passage. Similar considerations pertain to new religious movements such as Heaven’s Gate. Like the early Christians, they devised their own distinctive meanings of sacred texts. There is therefore limited force in counter-cult critiques that seek to demonstrate the ways in which such movements do violence to the meaning of scripture. The meaning of scripture is the meaning for them, and whether this is congruent with the text’s original meaning is often a matter of little concern.



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Finally, what is to be gained by analyzing Heaven’s Gate’s teachings in terms of postmodernity? Most obviously, any theoretical model facilitates explanation of a set of ideas and events rather than simply “telling the story.” More specifically, such analysis helps us to identify a number of societal factors that were at work in Heaven’s Gate phenomenon: apocalyptic ideas, attempted separation from the world, and fragmentary knowledge of philosophy, religion, and space science. To the vast majority of people who remained outside the Heaven’s Gate movement, it is not at all obvious how significant numbers of people could be persuaded to follow two leaders who used silly names, who claimed to be the unique fulfillments of biblical prophecy, and who had superficial knowledge of the subject areas relevant to their teachings. The analysis I have offered, I hope, helps to demonstrate how an intellectual climate of superficiality and fragmentary knowledge helps to make this possible, and how a group’s attempt to find life’s purpose entails seeking a “meaning for them” in a religious text, rather than a more overarching comprehensive historical meaning, of the kind found within academia, from which Applewhite had long since been excluded.

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Brahmavidayanada Saraswati, Swami. 1997. “This Suicide Got No One to Heaven: Blame the Wrong-Thinking Philosophy of Heaven’s Gate, not the Eastern Faiths.” Hinduism Today, July. http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/ item.php?itemid=4969 Brown, Courtney. 1997. Cosmic Voyage: A Scientific Discovery of Extraterrestrials Visiting Earth. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Caird, G. B. 1984. A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine. 2nd ed. London: Black. Chryssides, George D. 1999. Exploring New Religions. London: Cassell. ———. 2001a. Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. ———. 2001b. “Unrecognized Charisma: A Study of Four Charismatic Leaders — Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard and Swami Prabhupada.” CESNUR Library Texts and Documents; web version of revised conference paper, London School of Economics, April 2001. http://www.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/ chryssides.htm. CNN Interactive. 1997. U.S. News Story Page. http://www.cnn.com/US/9703/28/ mass.suicide/links.html. Court, John M. 1994. Revelation. Sheffield: J.S.O.T. Press. Däniken, Erich von. 1969. Chariots of the Gods?: Was God an Astronaut? London: Corgi. Deméré, Thomas A. 2003. “Faults and Earthquakes in San Diego County.” BRCC San Diego Natural History Museum. http//:www.sdnhm.org/research/palaeontology/ sdfaults.html. Garrow, A. J. P. 1997. Revelation. London: Routledge. Hall, John R., Philips D. Schuyler, and Sylvaine Trinh (2000). Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe and Japan. London: Routledge. Harvey, A. E. 1973. The New English Bible: Companion to the New Testament. Cambridge: Oxford and Cambridge University Presses. Humphrey, Chuck. 1997. “Who is RKKody?” June. http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ gthursby/rel/gate/rkkstory.htm. Introvigne, Massimo. 2002. “There Is No Place for Us but to Go Up.” Social Compass 49, no.2: 213–224. Kurtz, Josh. 1994. “Of UFOs and Hemorrhoids.” Santa Fe Reporter, April 27. http:// www.rickross.com/reference/heavensgate/gate23.html. Lewis, James R., ed. 1995. The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds. Albany: State University of New York Press. Meldgaard, Helle. n.d. “Exit Heaven’s Gate.” Aarhus, Denmark: Dialog Center. http:// www.dialogcentret.dk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=639: exit-heavens-gate&catid=125&Itemid=37



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Preston, Ronald H., and Anthony T. Hanson. 1962. The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. London: S.C.M. Robinson, Bruce A. 1997. “Heaven’s Gate: Christian / UFO Believers.” March 25. http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_highe.htm. Spacestar Communications. 2000. “Red Alert: Hale-Bopp Comet Brings Closure to Heaven’s Gate.” (Mirrored webpages of Heaven’s Gate). http://www.trancenet. org/heavensgate. Steiger, Brad, and Hayden Hewes. 1997. Inside Heaven’s Gate: The UFO Cult Leaders Tell Their Story in Their Own Words. New York: Penguin. Thompson, Leonard L. 1990. The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire. New York: Oxford University Press Wessinger, Catherine. 2000. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. [1953] 1963. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. Woodhead, Linda, and Paul Heelas, eds. 2000. Religion in Modern Times: An Interpretive Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell.

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“Those who came from the sky” ancient astronauts and creationism in the raëlian religion Erik A. W. Östling

Following the report of observations of flying saucers in June 1947 ­(Peebles 1994: 8ff.), the first half of the 1950s saw the emergence of contactees—men and women claiming contact with benign extraterrestrial beings (often referred to as Space brothers) (Melton 1995; Rothstein 2013: 221–222). Of course, claims of contact with extraterrestrials did not make its debut in the religious landscape in the 1950s, but rather as Gordon Melton has shown (1995: 2ff.), such claims have been made since the middle of the eighteenth century. What the contactees of the 1950s brought to the fore however, following Guy Ballard of the I Am movement, were claims to have met the Space brothers in person, rather than just contact through telepathic means or traveling through the cosmos in spirit rather than in the flesh (Melton 1995: 1ff., 7). Central to the alleged messages of the contactees was concern that, following the discovery of nuclear fission and the detonation of the atomic bombs, humanity was on the brink of self-annihilation, which also threatened the stability of the cosmos (e.g., Rothstein 2013: 220–221; Adamski 1956: 82; Bethurum 1954: 144–145; Leslie and Adamski 1953: 198–199). In studies of UFO religions, it has often been pointed out that contactee religions have an affinity with theosophical (Rothstein 2013: 217–218) and spiritualistic religion (Ellwood 1973: 131ff.), and that the Space brothers are similar to the Mahatmas or ascended masters of Theosophy (Partridge 2003: 11–12). Rather than founding religious organizations per se, contactees like George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, and Truman Bethurum (among others) spread their stories through books and pulp magazine articles (Rothstein



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2013: 222; Adamski 1951, 1956; Angelucci 1955; Bethurum 1954; Leslie and Adamski 1953), and lectured at “flying saucer clubs” (Buckner 1968: 225). Such clubs have been described as audience cults (Rothstein 2013: 222; Saliba 1995: 22; cf. Stark and Bainbridge 1985: 209ff.) or platform societies (Schutz 1980: 340).1 The 1950s also saw the formation of more highly organized religious movements such as George King’s Aetherius Society (Wallis 1975: 19– 20). Of course, religious innovation, claims of extraterrestrial contact, and the formation of yet newer religious movements have continued apace since then. This chapter will focus on one such religious group, The International Raëlian Movement (hereinafter referred to as the Raëlian religion), and show how its central mythology can be analyzed as a form of ancient astronaut theory and creationism.

The Raëlian Religion The Raëlian religion, like so many other religions, contains a narrative about how its purported truths and knowledge were revealed to humankind. In order to fully grasp the Raëlian worldview, it is imperative to begin with this narrative. On December 13, 1973, the young Frenchman Claude Vorilhon (b. 1946), an editor of a racing magazine and once an aspiring singer-songwriter (Palmer 2004: 32ff.), was out on a hike in the mountains outside of Clermont-Ferrand in the central part of France. Walking in the formerly volcanic mountains he became aware of a light descending toward him, and he was soon face to face with a being from another world. The being told him that he had traveled from afar to meet with him this day and that Claude had been compelled telepathically to take his mountain hike; just as he had been compelled to buy a Bible a few days earlier (Raël 1998: 13ff.). During the next five consecutive days (Raël 1998: 19, 31, 60, 72, 85), the two would meet on the mountain, and the being would give Raël an exegesis of the Bible, showing him how to read it so as to elucidate the true stories from the layers of “mystical and futile sentences” (Raël 1998: 20). Reading the Bible in this way showed not the miraculous creation of the world in six days, but rather the story of a scientific experiment carried out by human scientists from another planet. These scientists were referred to in the Bible as the Elohim.2 The word “Elohim,” according to the being, did not refer to a divine God, but was rather a plural word meaning “those who came from the sky” (the singular form would be “Eloha”) (Raël 1989: 2; 1998: 19–20, 75). The being related how the Elohim managed to create life in their laboratories and how they searched the stars to find a suitable place where the

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experiments could be undertaken; the Earth was one of their chosen planets. Remodeling the Earth to suit their needs, the Elohim began creating progressively more complex forms of life until they finally, about 13,000 years ago, created beings in their own image, the earthly humans. Fearing that their creation would become dangerous, public opinion on their home world persuaded the scientists to keep the created humans ignorant of their true origins and potentials (Raël 1989: 133; 1998: 19ff.). The story of the fall according to this exegesis of the Book of Genesis relates how a group of the scientists, led by one Eloha named Lucifer decided to enlighten the created earthly humans of their true origins, and the story of Noah’s ark is the story of the spaceship in which cells from all living beings were harbored together with a few humans during an attempt instigated by an Eloha named Satan (the leader of an oppositional political party) to destroy the creation through atomic explosions (Raël 1989: 94ff.; 1998: 24ff.). Following this episode, the Elohim came to understand they were themselves once created by other beings and decided that they would not try to destroy their creation again, but rather guide humankind with the aid of selected human emissaries (among whom Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha are found). They thus created the various religions of the world through their prophets so that, when sufficiently scientifically advanced, humans would be able to read between the lines of the mythologies of old and understand from whence they came and where they were heading (Raël 1989: 6, 97–98, 143; 1998: 78ff.). When humankind detonated the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, it ushered in the Age of Aquarius or the Age of the Apocalypse (meaning the Age of Revelation) and the time was now ripe for the arrival of the last and final prophet, the one who would bring the whole truth of human origins; the being told Claude that he was this chosen prophet and that he would be called Raël.3 As the final prophet, he was to disseminate what he had been told and build an embassy for the Elohim so that, when humankind had become nonviolent and proved itself worthy of its inheritance, they could come to Earth and meet the representatives of the nations (Raël 1989: 20; 1998: 72–73, 83–84, 90ff., 96). Following his encounter with the Eloha, Raël published his story in his first book, entitled Le livre qui dit la veriete (The book which tells the truth) (Palmer 2004: 31). After lecturing and being featured on French television, he began to gather a small following and thus created a group called MADECH.4 This group was to be short-lived; according to Susan J. Palmer, internal differences arose regarding whether the group would focus solely on Raël’s message or if it would also cater to other contactees. Raël solved the problem by dissolving MADECH and moving on to create what became The International Raëlian Movement (Palmer 2004: 36ff.).



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Both Palmer and George Chryssides have noted that Raël transformed from a contactee prophet into a messianic character (Chryssides 2003: 52; Palmer 2004: 31–32, 39). What is interesting is that parts of this development were concurrent with the schism described above. In 1975 Raël claimed that he once again met the Eloha (who this time confessed to be Yahweh himself, the leader of the Elohim) and that he was invited to take a trip through space to the planet of the eternals where the Elohim reside together with those earthly humans who have been rewarded with eternal life (Palmer 2004: 38–39; Raël 1989: 7; 1998: 149). There he was to meet and banquet together with all the other prophets. He was also placed in a machine which would enable the Elohim to directly channel messages through him, speaking directly through his mouth (Raël 1998: 148ff., 158). The final step in the transformation was taken with the publication of Raël’s third book Accueillir les extra-terrestres in 1979 (Palmer 2004: 39–40). It was revealed that Raël was himself part Elohim, that his mother had been taken aboard a spaceship to be inseminated with Yahweh’s sperm and then returned with every recollection of the incident erased.5 Being the son of Yahweh also rendered Raël the half-brother of Jesus (Raël 1989: 113–114).6 Today Raël is referred to as “his holiness”7 and is considered to be the personification of such messianic figures as the awaited Messiah of Judaism, the Islamic Mahdi, and the Buddhist Maitreya.8

Ancient Astronaut Theories Readers familiar with ufological lore will recognize in this narrative of ancient extraterrestrial visitations the familiar ancient astronaut theory (Grunschloss 2007: 223–224; Richter 2012: 244). Theorists promoting these ideas start with the assumption that in the past the Earth was being visited from the stars and then try to find definitive proofs of these visitations in ancient myths and legends, archaeological findings, and historical buildings (Richter 2012: 223) and also more recent ethnographic data (e.g., Däniken 1973: 145ff.). Central to these theories is the notion that conventional archeology or history cannot adequately explain certain anomalies, and that the proper way to read all of this material is as a narrative of a long-gone, highly technological golden age when the gods (i.e., aliens) walked on the Earth. These beings are often seen as either the bringers of culture (Grunschloss 2007: 216ff.), refining a primitive ­proto-human (e.g., Leslie and Adamski 1953: 9), or even the creators of humanity (e.g., Trench 1960: 32). The reasoning goes that humankind in those ancient times was too primitive to understand and thus deified the visitors (Richter 2012: 235), and that it is only now, when we are ourselves on the brink of being

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released from our bonds to the soil of this planet that we can understand our background; as Richter puts it, “[m]odern technological achievements are projected back into a distant past, they are projected upon the surface of ancient texts and artifacts” (2012: 233). The idea of the inherent truthfulness of the ancient myths was succinctly formulated by Brinsley Le Poer Trench: “The myths themselves are but the fairy story coverings these true happenings of a bygone era were wrapt [sic] up in to preserve them for posterity” (Trench 1960: 23). Perhaps the most famous proponent of these types of theories is the Swiss author Erich von Däniken who published his first book, Chariots of the Gods?, in the late 1960s (Däniken 1969). Däniken was, of course, not the first to promote such thinking. It is commonly stated that Charles Fort, in the early twentieth century, was among the first with his notion of humanity as the property of beings occasionally visiting the Earth (Fort 2002: 160ff.; Grunschloss 2007: 207ff.; Medway 1996: 4; Richter 2012: 225). Also, in November 1947, just a few months after flying saucers first made headlines, the short story Son of the Sun put forth the notion that flying saucers had visited the Earth since the dawn of humanity, that their origin was beyond our own planet, and that primitive humans misidentified their occupants as being divine (Blade 1947; Medway 1996: 4). The projects of claiming the historicity (if perhaps not in exactly the same way) of ancient myths does, of course, go back further in time in the ­writings of such nineteenth-century figures such as Heinrich Schliemann ­(Grunschloss 2007: 210) and Ignatius Donnelly (1976: 1–2). This interpretative perspective requires, on the one hand, claiming the truthfulness of the old mythological narratives, a “will to believe” as Andreas Grunschloss calls it (2007: 217); and at the same time naturalizing them and making them more up to date with our present scientific—or perceived to be scientific—understanding of the world. A common strategy of such naturalization is to point to phenomena once considered supernatural and divine that are, in fact, rather natural and technological (Saliba 1995: 34–35). Two quotes from Morris K. Jessup and R. L. Dione will demonstrate how this reasoning works: The Bible is filled with events which are commonly called miracles. They are called miracles because nobody has ever “explained” them. Countless thousands of theologians have made attempts. They have satisfied few other than themselves. But, all is not hopeless. There are rational explanations. Nothing is supernatural, for nothing that exists can be outside nature, and this includes God, Who is Nature. Our difficulty, and that of the clergy, has been in trying to “explain” paranormal occurrences by means of nonexistent causes. (Jessup 1956: 10, emphasis in original)



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God is not supernatural but rather supertechnological and is capable of all acts and all characteristics hitherto attributed to miraculous powers. That he created man in his image is not a myth or a parable; for God, while humanoid, is nevertheless immortal through technology. (Dione 1969: p. viii) If the concept of supernaturalism is not eschewed altogether, as in the case of von Däniken’s work (Richter 2012: 233–234), the ancient divinities are still naturalized by being shown not to be supernatural: I myself am quite convinced that when the last question about our past has been given a genuine and convincing answer SOMETHING, which I call GOD for want of a better name, will remain for eternity. Yet the hypothesis that an unimaginable god needed vehicles with wheels and wings to move from place to place, mated with primitive people, and dared not let his mask fall remains an outrageous piece of presumption, as long as it’s unsupported by proof. (Däniken 1969: 68–69) Raël performs similar feats of deconstructing the supernatural (e.g., Raël 1989: 2ff.; 2001: 80). I think it safe to say that the most interpreted mythological text among ancient astronaut theoreticians is the Bible. Considering the importance of this particular text within Western culture for the last two millennia, it is not surprising that it would be within the scope of such reinterpretations and appropriations. Regarding the Raëlian interpretation of the Bible, Eugene Gallagher has noted: “The Raëlian movement and other new religions in which interpretation of the Bible figure prominently do not originate one-sidedly in a ‘cultic milieu’ or ‘occulture’ that is divorced from the broad biblical tradition. Rather, they represent creative blendings of biblical and other sources” (Gallagher 2010: 14, cf. 28ff.). I think, however, rather that the situation is that the form of biblical interpretation I am discussing here is drawn from within the cultic milieu or occulture. These terms refer to an amorphous and ever changing field of consumers and producers in the contemporary religious scene. Further it must be acknowledged that this field or milieu is considered highly conducive of religious innovation and that it is to be considered a resource on which the religious innovator may draw (Campbell 1972: 122 ff; Partridge 2004: 62-86):

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The cultic milieu can be regarded as the cultural underground of society. [. . .] [I]t includes all deviant belief-systems and their associated practices. Unorthodox science, alien and heretical religion, deviant medicine, all comprise elements of such an underground. In addition, it includes the collectivities, institutions, individuals and media of communication associated with these beliefs. (Campbell 1972: 122) Very briefly, occulture includes those often hidden, rejected, and oppositional beliefs and practices associated with esotericism, theosophy, mysticism, New Age, Paganism, and a range of other subcultural beliefs and practices, many of which are identified by Campbell as belonging to the cultic/mystical milieu and by Stark and Bainbridge as belonging to the occult subculture. (Partridge 2004: 68, emphasis in original) As mentioned earlier, the plurality of the word “Elohim” is of central importance in Raël’s biblical exegesis. In placing this exegesis within the cultic milieu, it is important to note that Raël was in no way the first to claim that “the Elohim” to refer to a collective of extraterrestrial beings. This has been noted earlier by, for example, Palmer who suggests that part of the reason for the success of Raël was that his revelations landed on ­fertile ground (Palmer 2004: 28; cf. Sentes and Palmer 2000: 90–91; ­Grünschloß 2007: 223). As far as I am aware the first instance of this prior use is an article that Yonah Fortner published under the pseudonym Y. N. ibn Aharon in the late 1950s in the American UFO-periodical Saucer News. Here, the Elohim were the designation for one of several groups of alien beings who visited the Earth at the dawn of history (Clark 1992: 139–140; ibn Aharon 1957–1958: 9–10). He writes: “The early stages of the development of the human race were observed by those from upon High (Elohim), i.e., interplanetary beings. Of this race we know little” (ibn Aharon 1957–1958: 9). He continues to state: “this race, members of which are still worshipped as gods over much of the world, was quite human in appearance, although of extraterrestrial origin. One member of this race, namely the God of Israel, is the target of Western monotheism at the present time” (ibn Aharon 1957–1958: 10). Just a few years later, Brinsley Le Poer Trench published his book The Sky People, which included the notion that Elohim is a plural word denoting superior beings (Trench 1960: 26ff.). Ronald Story, who discusses the use of the word “Elohim” within ufology and also mentions Raël, claims that the first instance of the use of the word “Elohim” in this context was this aforementioned book (Story 2001: 168), but this is not accurate.



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Our third and final example is the one closest to Raël in time and space, the Frenchman Jean Sendy. In his 1969 book Those Gods who Made Heaven & Earth, he proposed that some 20,000 years ago a change in the Earth’s climate had started to render the planet uninhabitable, and primitive humanity would have been doomed to certain extinction were it not for the intervention of extraterrestrials called the Elohim, led by their leader, the Adonai (Sendy 1972: 13, 48ff., 82). The existence of these prior uses of the Elohim as a collective of extraterrestrial beings have been used by some critics of the Raëlian religion as alleged proof that it is all clever hoaxing on Raël’s part. Jean Nehassedy has tried to list possible sources from which Raël might have compiled his mythology.9 I am not sure that a convincing case can be made to show a straight line of influence from all these prior authors. The point is rather more modest: to show that Raël in no way emerged in a vacuum. Every religious innovation draws upon the context in which it is created (cf. Rothstein 2000: 115). An interesting feature of this is how the Raëlian religion has chosen to cope with these allegations. On their official homepage, there is a list of books by “independent authors,” where the following discussion about Jean Sendy can be found: Sendy theorized about extraterrestrial intervention in humanity’s ancient past. His first book “The [sic] Gods Who Made Heaven and Earth” was published in 1968. [. . .] He wrote that “Elohim” indeed means “Those who come from the sky” and that every educated man, a few centuries ago, knew this as common knowledge. Written as a novel, he also theorized many things which the Elohim confirmed in the messages given to Rael in 1973 and 1975.10 It is thus clear that from the Raëlian perspective, the works of Sendy are rather corroborations that lend support to the works of Raël.

Raëlian Ancient Astronaut Theories as a Form of Creationism To the extent that the extraterrestrials are considered to be the creators of humankind, ancient astronaut theories are, in a sense, a form of creationism (­Richter 2012: 235–236). The Raëlians have adopted the label Intelligent Design, but try to distance themselves from any notions of supernaturalism by claiming that theirs is an atheistic form of Intelligent Design11 and that they are in fact an atheist ­religion—and, further, a religion of science (Raël 1989: 143; 2001: 159). Sentes and Palmer claim that Raëlianism is to be understood from “the horizon of the death of God,” a perspective where transcendence is relegated to immanence

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and the supernatural to the mere paranormal, waiting for scientific explanation (2000: 102). Grunschloss has argued that this Raëlian self-assessment as an atheistic religion is to be considered correct and that it follows from their ancient astronaut theories (2007: 224). Analyzing the concept of atheism in-depth is sadly beyond the scope of this chapter. What however is important to note is that functionally speaking the Elohim could be considered as performing pretty much the same role as divinities within this religion. Indeed, Mikael Rothstein has argued that whether or not Raëlianism is labeled as atheistic, it contains the same common structures and motifs as most religions (Rothstein 2000: 132). Raëlian creationism is, however, only focused on anthropogony rather than cosmogony, which is a concept alien to this religion. The world is considered to have always existed (and will always exist) and the Big Bang is considered to be a flawed theory.12 Both space and time are infinite. We are living in the atoms of grander beings; at the same time we are composed of matter filled with life. This infinity in time and space is represented in the Raëlian symbol, a swastika (infinity in time) interlocked in a Star of David (infinity in space) (Raël 1989: 52–53; 1998: 144ff., 208).13 I have earlier argued that the Raëlian reading of Genesis could be considered to be a form of Day-Age theory (Östling 2009: 74), a form of creationism in which the days of creation in Genesis are interpreted not to refer to literal days but rather to periods of time (Scott 1997: 270). In Raël’s first book, each day of creation corresponds to the time it takes for the precession of the equinoxes to move between two signs in the Zodiac, which would be a little more than 2,000 years (Raël 1998: 20). Day-Age theory came to prominence within creationism during the nineteenth century as one of the ways to reconcile the biblical narrative with the age of the Earth that geological evidence suggested (Numbers 1999: 236). However, in its Raëlian rendition, it points to a much more recent creation of life. Chryssides has argued that “Raëlianism’s objection to evolutionism does not derive from the fact that creationism is enshrined in holy writ, but from scientific considerations” (Chryssides 2003: 50). I would however argue that this type of reasoning is quite in line with standard creationism as well. In doing this, they are in fact showing a certain similarity with what is often referred to as Young Earth Creationism (YEC) (e.g., Scott 1997: 267ff.). This similarity is of course only by degree since Raëlian creationism only deals with the creation of living beings. However, as Pennock has noted, the same kind of negative arguments are voiced against evolutionary theory by Raëlians and mainline creationists alike (such as that radiometric dating is flawed and that mutations and natural selection can in no way account for the diversity of life). Further, the same kind of teleological inferences are made from the



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s­ upposed design in nature to the existence of the Elohim (Pennock 2000: 235–236, 263; e.g., Raël 1989: 24ff., 88–89; 1998: 82).

Exegesis and Appropriations As the Elohim are considered the originators of the religious traditions on Earth, Raëlians can thus draw from a wide spectrum of mythological narratives to find support for their ideas. As George Chryssides has noted, this could be considered to be “a theory of progressive truth” (Chryssides 2003: 51). The writings of Raël are the final version, the metanarrative to which all the other religions are mere imprecise approximations. This also holds true when one considers the collective of prophets of which Raël is considered to be the last one. Whereas it is stated that Raël is the last and final member of this collective, not every prophet is named. This thus provides an open window of interpretation where different personages can be appropriated into the diffusion of the Raëlian message. A case in point is the press release where Raël, in order to reach out to a Native American audience (among others), claimed that such revitalistic prophets as Smohalla, Tenskwatawa, and Wovoka where in fact messengers of the Elohim as well.14 The observation of the central importance of the Bible in ancient astronaut readings holds especially true when it comes to Raël. Besides a few references to other religious texts such as the Qur’an and what Raël refers to as The Kabala (Raël 1998: 78ff., 199–200), the Bible is almost the only text that is exegeted to find the traces of the creative acts of the Elohim (Gallagher 2010: 15, 21–22; cf. Östling 2009: 72). Following David Chidester’s discussion of the appropriation of the Bible within the Unification Church and the Peoples Temple, I can say that, for the Raëlians, the Bible is an open text (see Chidester 1988: 140ff.). A text littered with the “poetic babblings” (Raël 1998: 20) of our primitive ancestors, it is finally through Raël’s revelations in the present Age of the Apocalypse that humanity can understand the true meanings of the text and weed out all the layers of supernaturalistic superstitions. With the words of Yahweh, through the hands and mouth of Raël, the text is finally given “closure” (cf. Chidester 1988: 144).

A Controversial New Religion? Any group with beliefs or practices that deviate from what is considered the norm of the surrounding society (not to imply that Raëlians are somehow isolated from or not part of larger society) run the risk of being considered controversial by said surrounding society; and the Raëlian religion is no e­ xception.

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Palmer has suggested that rather than shying away from controversy, the Raëlians try to keep a steady, low level of controversy in relation to the surrounding society. The media is thus used as a platform for promoting their worldview and values, and securing social acceptance (Palmer 2005: 372ff.). Besides relating humanity’s origins, the Raëlians envision a future society, a scientific paradise, where humans will create life and equal the Elohim. Raël has come to call this seeming deification of humankind as our “Elohimization” (Raël 2001: 113ff.; cf. Palmer 2004: 102–103; Richter 2012: 244), and it seems to be that it is around this idea of an ideal society that most of the controversies have been gathered. Sexuality is often a locus for controversies involving new religious movements (Dawson 2006: 125). The Raëlians have as Palmer mentions drawn some public attention with their free love philosophy (2005: 372). Sexuality and sensuality is perceived as the way to become beings harmonious with the infinity that surrounds us, and the Raëlians openly endorse masturbation and nudism (being created in the image of the Elohim, we are not to look down upon our naked bodies but rather embrace their beauty). The final part of the meditational technique that Raël claims was given to him by the Elohim is the physical union of two beings in order to achieve what is referred to as a “cosmic orgasm,” a state achievable when the participants try to put themselves in harmony with the infinitely small parts from which they are composed and the infinitely large that they themselves are a part (Raël 1989: 8; 1998: 171, 185– 186; 2002: 72ff., 112ff.). In 2004 the Raëlian religion was featured in Playboy. Together with photos of naked Raëlian women descending from flying saucers or scantily dressed in lab coats was a picture of Raël flanked by naked women (Playboy 2004). Femininity and feminine beauty is of prime importance. In order to become more harmonious, humanity must become more feminine15 and the Elohim have decided that only women will be allowed to enter the embassy when they arrive on Earth (Palmer 2004: 134–135, 139–140). In 2002 the Raëlians made headlines when they claimed that the company Clonaid, founded by Raël and headed by the Raëlian Brigitte Boisselier, had managed to clone the first human ever, a baby girl named Eve; and that several more cloned babies where on the way (Palmer 2004: 187–188). No cloned babies have, however, to my knowledge, ever been brought forward for public scrutiny to this day. That cloning was a field into which the Raëlians would venture is not surprising. According to Raëlian ontology, it is only through cloning and subsequent memory transfer that immortality can be achieved. Raël claims that he got to witness how this procedure is done during his visit to the planet of the eternals (Raël 1998: 142, 154–155; 2001: 35ff.). The Raëlian religion claims to offer a



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prospect of living forever for the just (Raël 1998: 159) and also the way for humankind to transcend our destructive sides and move forward onto virtual godhood. Our ancestors arrived from the stars they claim, and our destiny is to continue their creative acts among the stars and spread life throughout the cosmos.

Notes An earlier version of this chapter was published as an article in Alternative S ­ pirituality and Religion Review (Vol. 4, no. 2). Parts of this chapter were presented as a paper at the Ends and Beginnings conference (annual conference of the EASR and special conference of the IAHR) at Södertörn University College, Stockholm. August 23–26, 2012. I am indebted to Peter Åkerbäck, Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen, Per Faxneld, Venetia Robertson, Manon Hedenborg-White, and Emil Holmgren for valuable comments and suggestions. Any errors or omissions are wholly mine. 1. Schutz is basing his discussion of platform societies on Buckner (see Schutz 1980: 340; cf. Buckner 1968: 225). 2. The word “Elohim” is one of several Hebrew “names of God” used in the Bible (Davidson 1910: 198 f.). 3. Meaning “light of the Elohim” (Raël 1998: 84). 4. Mouvement pour l’accueil des Elohim créateur de l’humanité (Movement for welcoming the Elohim, creators of humanity) (Raël 1998: 93). 5. This is an obvious reference to the alien abduction and missing time narratives that are a part of UFO lore. The first case of memory loss in relation to an alleged abduction by extraterrestrials was the Betty and Barney Hill case in 1961 (Denzler 2001: 48 f.; for the original book-length presentation of the case, see Fuller 1966). 6. According to Palmer (2004: 31, 39), Raël also claims to be the brother of other prophets such as Muhammad and Buddha. I have, however, not found any references to that in the primary source material. 7. See, e.g., “Warning: Super Colliders Should Not Be Used by Humanity!” August 27, 2004, http://www.raelpress.org/comment.php?comment.news.26. 8. See “Rael: Messenger of the Elohim,” http://www.rael.org/rael. A reference to Raël being the Mahdi can be found in a press release dated April 30, 2004; it has now been removed from the web but the author has a printed copy in his files. A now defunct Raëlian homepage “Maitreya from the West” was dedicated to proving Raël to be the Maitreya (http://web.archive.org/web/20120628100258/ http://www.maitreya.co.kr/eng/index.html). “The Maitreya” is also the title of the latest book by Raël (2004). 9. “Le Mensonge Raëlien,” http://www.rael.free.fr/main03.htm. See also “About Jean Sendy,” http://raelian.com/en/jean_sendy.php. 10. “Books by independent Authors,” http://www.rael.org/e107_plugins/links_page/ links.php?cat.3. 11. “Intelligent Design is a Valid Scientific Theory,” http://raelianews.org/news. php?extend.28.

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12. “World Swastika Rehabilitation Day on June 26,” http://raelianews.org/news. php?extend.440. 13. The swastika also signified that everything is cyclical (Raël 1998: 144). 14. The press release seems to have since been removed from the Raëlian webpage, but it can be accessed through the Internet Archives Wayback machine: “His Holiness Rael Will Attend Annual Seminar and Wishes to Meet Native American Chiefs to Deliver Message from the Sky People,” March 19, 2004, http:// web.archive.org/web/20040426205536/http://www.rael.org/int/press_site/ english/pages/press_releases/190304.html. For short biographies of the three Native American prophets in question, see Hirschfelder and Molin 1992: 269– 270, 295–296, 330–331. 15. See “Clitocracy,” http://www.thereisnogod.info/English/Clitocracy.html.

Bibliography Adamski, George. 1951. “I Photographed Space Ships.” Fate 4, no. 5: 64–74. ———. 1956. Inside the Space Ships. London: Arco Publishers. Angelucci, Orfeo. 1955. The Secret of the Saucers. Amherst, MA: Amherst Press. Bethurum, Truman. 1954. Aboard a Flying Saucer. Los Angeles: DeVorss & Co. Blade, Alexander. 1947. “Son of the Sun.” Fantastic Adventures 9, no. 7, 174–175. Buckner, H. Taylor. 1968. “The Flying Saucerians: An Open Door Cult.” In Sociology and Everyday Life, edited by Marcello Truzzi, 223–230. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Campbell, Colin. 1972. “The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization.” In A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5, edited by Michael Hill, 119–136. London: SCM Press. Chidester, David. 1988. “Stealing the Sacred Symbols: Biblical Interpretation in the Peoples Temple and the Unification Church.” Religion 18: 137–162. Chryssides, George D. 2003. “Scientific Creationism: A Study of the Raëlian Church.” In UFO Religions, edited by Christopher Partridge, 45–61. London: Routledge. Clark, Jerome. 1992. The Emergence of a Phenomenon: UFOs from the Beginning through 1959. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics. Däniken, Erich von. 1969. Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. New York: GP Putnam’s Sons. ———. 1973. The Gold of the Gods. New York: GP Putnam’s Sons. Davidson, A. B. [1899] 1910. “God (in OT).” In A Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 2, edited by James Hastings, 196–205. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Dawson, Lorne L. 2006. Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Denzler, Brenda. 2001. The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.



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Dione, R. L. 1969. God Drives a Flying Saucer. New York: Bantam Books. Donnelly, Ignatius L. [1882] 1976. Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. New York: Dover Publications. Ellwood, Robert S., Jr. 1973. Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Fort, Charles H. [1919] 2002. The Book of the Damned. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. Fuller, John G. 1966. The Interrupted Journey: Two Lost Hours “Aboard a Flying Saucer.” New York: Dual Press. Gallagher, Eugene V. 2010. “Extraterrestrial Exegesis: The Raëlian Movement as a Biblical Religion.” Nova Religio 14, no. 2: 14–33. Grunschloss, Andreas. 2007. “‘Ancient Astronaut’ Narrations: A Popular Discourse on Our Religious Past.” Fabula 48, no. 3: 205–228. Hirschfelder, Arlene, and Paulette Molin. 1992. Encyclopedia of Native American Religions. New York: Facts on File. ibn Aharon, Y. N. [Yonah Fortner]. 1957–1958. “Extraterrestrialism as an Historical Doctrine—Part One—The Extraterrestrial Factor in the Cultural Development of Early Man.” Saucer News 5, no. 1: 7–10. Jessup, Morris K. 1956. UFO and the Bible. New York: Citadel Press. Leslie, Desmond, and George Adamski. 1953. Flying Saucers Have Landed. London: Werner Laurie. Medway, Gareth. 1996. “Who Taught God to Drive?” Magonia 57: 3–7. Melton, J. Gordon. 1995. “The Contactees: A Survey.” In The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds, edited by James R. Lewis, 1–13. Albany: State University of New York Press. Numbers, Ronald L. 1999. “Creating Creationism: Meanings and Uses since the Age of Agassiz.” In Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective, edited by David N. Livingstone et al., 234–243. New York: Oxford University Press. Östling, Erik A. W. 2009. “Raëlrörelsen: En vetenskaplig religion eller en religion i vetenskapsliknande klädnad?” Aura 1: 70–103. Palmer, Susan J. 2004. Aliens Adored: Raël’s UFO Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ———. 2005. “The Raëlian Movement: Concocting Controversy, Seeking Social Legitimacy.” In Controversial New Religions, 1st ed., edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, 371–385. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Partridge, Christopher. 2003. “Understanding UFO Religions and Abduction Spiritualities.” In UFO Religions, edited by Christopher Partridge, 3–42. London: Routledge. ———. 2004. The Re-Enchantment of the West. Vol. 1. London: T & T Clark International. Peebles, Curtis. 1994. Watch the Skies: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Pennock, Robert T. [1999] 2000. Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Playboy. 2004. “The Rael World: Prepare for a Close Encounter of the Nude Kind.” Playboy 51, no. 10: 76–81. Raël [Claude Vorilhon]. 1989. Let’s Welcome our Fathers from Space: They Created Humanity in Their Laboratories. Tokyo: AOM Corporation. ———. 1998. The True Face of God. The Raëlian Religion. ———. 2001. Yes to Human Cloning: Eternal Life Thanks to Science. Vaduz: Raelian Foundation. ———. 2002. Sensual Meditation: Awakening the Mind by Awakening the Body. Nova Diffusion. ———. 2004. The Maitreya: Extracts from his Teachings. Vaduz: Raelian Foundation. Richter, Jonas. 2012. “Traces of the Gods: Ancient Astronauts as a Vision of Our Future.” Numen 59, nos. 2–3: 222–248. Rothstein, Mikael. 2000. UFOer og rumvæsener: Myten om de flyvende tallerkener. København: Gyldendal. ———. 2013. “Mahatmas in Space: The Ufological Turn and Mythological Materiality of Post–World War II Theosophy.” In Handbook of the Theosophical Current, edited by Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein, 217–236. Leiden: Brill. Saliba, John A. 1995. “Religious Dimensions of UFO Phenomena.” In The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds, edited by James R. Lewis, 15–64. Albany: State University of New York Press. Schutz, Michael K. 1980. “Sociological Aspects of UFOs.” In The Encyclopedia of UFOs, edited by Ronald D. Story, 339–341. Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books. Scott, Eugenie C. 1997. “Antievolution and Creationism in the United States.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 263–289. Sendy, Jean. 1972. Those Gods Who Made Heaven & Earth. New York: Berkley Medallion. Sentes, Bryan, and Susan Palmer. 2000. “Presumed Immanent: the Raëlians, UFO Religions, and the Postmodern Condition.” Nova Religio 4, no. 1: 86–105. Stark, Rodney, and William Sims Bainbridge. 1985. The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Story, Ronald D. 2001. “Elohim.” In The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters: A Definitive, Illustrated A-Z Guide to all Things Alien, edited by Ronald D. Story, 168. New York: New American Library. Trench, Brinsley Le Poer. 1960. The Sky People. London: Neville Spearman. Wallis, Roy. 1975. “The Aetherius Society: A Case Study in the Formation of a Mystagogic Congregation.” In Sectarianism: Analyses of Religious and Non-Religious Sects, edited by Roy Wallis, 17–34. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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the late 1990s saw the rise of racist paganism to become one of the most dynamic religious expressions of the white power culture. This fact should not mislead the reader to assume that racism is inherent in paganism or that all pagans are racists. The invention of the classificatory categories “race” and “nation” are products of modernity and were, probably, unknown to the pagan cultures of pre-Christian Europe. Pagans of today, however, live in social realities long governed by these classificatory categories as organizing principles and hence impossible to avoid. In fact, a perennial conflict among today’s pagans involves different understandings of what paganism is and for whom a certain tradition is appropriate. Is it necessary to be an American Indian to practice Native American religion or could anybody become a shaman? May an African American be part of an Asatrú guild or is Norse religion only for those claiming a Northern European ancestry? On this issue, today’s paganism has taken three distinct positions: a non-racist (or even anti-racist position), an explicitly racist, and an ethnic position. To illustrate with Asatrú or Odinism, the pagan milieus involved with reviving the pre-Christian traditions of Northern Europe. Non-racist Asatrú is a polytheist spiritual path that welcomes any genuinely interested person irrespective of race or ethnicity. Dismissing non-racist Asatrú as an effeminate New Age corruption, the racist position defines Asatrú/Odinism as an expression of the Aryan racial soul and hence an exclusive creed open to whites only. In fact, many, but not all, adhering to the racist position prefer terming their warpath of spiritual politics “Odinism” or the Germanic “Wotanism” rather than risk being lumped together with non-racist Asatrúers. Attempting to get beyond the issue of race, the third position defines Asatrú as an ethnic religion, native to Northern Europe and therefore “natural” to Americans of Northern European ancestry. The notion of an “organic” link between

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ethnicity and religion obviously implies an assumption that genetics somehow determine the spiritual disposition of man. Accordingly, although most take exception to racism, adherents of the ethnic position share certain presuppositions with racist paganism. This unresolved element of philosophical ambiguity has left ethnocentric Asatrú open to criticism from both non-racist and racist pagans. Simultaneously being denounced as racists and race traitors, ethnic Asatrúers argue that they are neither, insisting that partisans should leave their politics out of pagan activities. Numerically, the non-racist position seems to be the strongest, although there are no reliable statistics available. The reader is encouraged to keep this in mind during the following presentation of racist paganism. As much as the activities of Christian Ku Klux Klan activists do not make all Christians racists, the existence of racist pagans should not taint all pagans. The surge of racist paganism is related to a process of radicalization of the white power culture. As such, it is a continuation of the refutation of Christianity that took hold in the Aryan underground in the 1980s. Similar to the iconoclastic rhetoric of the Church of the Creator, many racist pagans single out Christianity as a key to the perceived demise of white power and Western civilization. Racist pagans tend, however, to be dissatisfied with the basically atheist outlook of the Church of the Creator.1 Opting to replace Christianity with an alternative supposedly native to white people, racist pagans see the future in the past, aiming at reconstructing some pre-Christian tradition of ancient Europe as the white man’s “true” religion. This project may take many different, though not necessarily exclusive, forms, and the white power culture abounds with symbols, divinities, and mythologies found among the archeological remnants of the ancient cultures of Europe (e.g., the Greek, Slav, Roman, Etruscan, Celtic, Saxon, Manx, or Scandinavian). As the efforts to revive pre-Christian traditions of Northern Europe have so far been proven to be the most viable, I will here focus on this project. With important predecessors among the racist mystics and ariosophic philosophers in the pan-Germanic völkisch milieu vibrant in continental Europe at the turn of the former century, racist paganism has since come in two waves; one in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and one in the late 1980s and 1990s. During the flower power era, explicitly racist Americans were still very much Christian and mainly caught up with the Klan project of 100 percent Americanism, and most counterculture pagans tended to be left-leaning hippies. Comparatively more racist pagans came with the second wave when flower power had given way to the more reactionary winds of the Reagan/ Bush era and many white racists had made the transition to the underground white power scene.2 The milieu of racist paganism is populated by numerous



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groups, kindreds, one-man bands, and networks, the majority of which are as short-lived as daylight on northern winter skies. Instead of presenting a comprehensive catalog of racist pagan organizations that would be dated before it goes to print, I will facilitate an understanding of racist paganism by focusing on one significant racist pagan vehicle of each wave: the Odinist Fellowship and Wotansvolk.

Odinist Fellowship Established in 1969, the Odinist Fellowship is the oldest existing organization on the Norse pagan scene. Primarily a ministry by mail, it was long based in founder Else Christensen’s (1913–2005) mobile home at Crystal River, Florida, and then relocated to her small trailer in Parksville at Vancouver Island, British Columbia. As the Grand Mother of racist Odinism, Christensen introduced significant elements later adopted by many racist pagans, including her identification of Norse paganism as the “racial soul” of the Aryan folk, her Jungian view on the heathen gods and goddesses as race-specific, genetically engraved archetypes, her politics of “tribal socialism,” and her focus on prison outreach ministries as a prime recruitment avenue. Through Christensen, many of the current Asatrú and Odinist ideologues first became acquainted with Norse traditions, although many of them would later embark on independent routes. While some expressed impatience with her insistence on a low political profile, others would explore in more depth the ritual and magical paths Christensen was less inclined to tread. Born in Denmark in 1913, Christensen began as an anarchist before converting to the national-bolshevist (Strasserite) wing of the Nazi movement. Her husband Aage Alex Christensen was top lieutenant in the miniscule Danish National Socialist Workers’ Party. Ousted along with the Strasserite faction, he was later arrested when Germany occupied Denmark, serving six months in a detention camp. Following the war, Christensen moved to Toronto, Canada, and developed contacts with the emerging white power scene across the border. Among her closer associates was the seminal populist anti-Semite Willis Carto and American Nazi Party organizer James K. Warner. Later an influential Identity Christian minister and Klan leader, Warner had made an aborted attempt to launch Odinism as the religious dimension of revolutionary National Socialism. Disappointed by the failure of his (Sons of Liberty) Odinist Religion, Inc., Warner gave Christensen all his leftover Norse material, including a pamphlet by the Australian lawyer and Church of Odin founder Alexander Rud Mills, the Call of Our Ancient Nordic Religion.

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At the time, Christensen was greatly influenced by Oswald Spengler and his National Socialist interpreter, Francis Parker Yockey, whose Imperium became a white power culture staple. Following Yockey, Christensen concluded that the Aryan civilization had reached its “senility phase,” deranged by the combined effects of Christianity, capitalism, and communism. Christianity promotes the “unnatural” idea “that all people are equal” and “universal brotherhood”; capitalism favors individual enrichment over folk solidarity and exploits nature for short-term profit; and communism destroys the organic unity of a race by its call for class struggle and international solidarity. Following Mills, Christensen (interview 1998) argued for a spiritual remedy: a revival of Norse paganism; identifying Odinism as a primordial expression of the Aryan “folk soul,” understood in Jungian terms as a genetically transmitted collective unconscious. To Christensen (1984), the “primary source” of Odinism is biological: “its genesis is in our race, its principles encoded in our genes.” Convinced that any overt racist agenda would attract unwanted attention, Christensen (interview 1998) claims the advantage of a pagan approach: “You have to go in the back door! You have to sway with the wind. . . . I don’t think that anybody mistook my opinions from what we wrote in The Odinist, but nobody could put a finger on what we said, because we said it in such a way that it couldn’t be clamped down at. We still have to do that.” A carefully veiled racialist pagan message will, Christensen argues, prevail where others fail: “[Tom] Metzger thought he could twist the noses of the Jews, but you can’t do that, so he collapsed. He just disintegrated. It was the same with [Ben] Klassen. . . . You cannot repeat the mistake that Hitler made. . . . Everybody knows that the Jews rule the whole damned world, so you cannot fight their combined power. You need to watch your step.” Exactly how carefully “veiled” the message really was might be doubted. A couple of non-racist Odinists charged the editors of Christensen’s tabloid, the Odinist, with “doing a disservice to paganism by promoting religious zealousness in the form of politics, especially ‘Nazi politics’ and [printing articles with] offensive racial overtones.” In a 1985 rebuttal, the Odinist editor claimed that the “Nazi charge was the cheapest of all cheap shots that can be aimed against anyone who finds something positive to say about National Socialism.” “If any Odinist is ashamed of the ‘racial overtones’ of being Aryan, of standing up for Aryan rights, then we wonder why such a skittish a person ever want to be an Odinist,” the editorial stated. “We, as Odinists, shall continue our struggle for Aryan religion, Aryan freedom, Aryan culture, Aryan consciousness and Aryan self-determination” (“Odinism” 1985).



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Christensen urges American racists to learn from the history of fascism. Saluting the early left-oriented ultra-nationalist ideology of Mussolini’s Fasci, Christensen claims that Mussolini betrayed the cause by “collaborating with the capitalist element.” Similarly, she regrets that the “true, socialist and folkish, potential” of National Socialism never became realized as Hitler purged the movement of the national bolshevist faction and aligned with the far Right. Key to the historical failure of fascism was to Christensen its centralized totalitarianism. In this argument, the anarchist leanings of her youth shine forth. Anarchism seeks the dissolution of authoritarian government, the decentralization of responsibility, and the replacement of states and similar monolithic forms of political administration with a radically decentralized federalist organization of society. This will “return” sovereignty to the individual and the local community in a society governed by direct democracy. Christensen departs from the mainstream of anarchist philosophies by her insistence on the primacy of race. Whereas the contemporary anarchist scene generally is anti-fascist and anti-racist, Christensen describes anarchism as a fundamentally Aryan ideology. She believes that anarchism originated in the “nature” of Aryan man and wants a decentralized society based on the voluntary cooperation of free Aryan individuals. Christensen upholds as ideal a decentralized folkish communalism, modeled on self-sufficient communes such as the Amish or the early National Syndicalists in Spain, described as an effort “to unite Anarcho-Syndicalist ideals with the nationalist spirit,” that was later suppressed by “reactionary Francoite authoritarianism” (“Aryan” 1983; Christensen interview 1998). Projecting her ideals back into legendary times, Christensen claims that pre-Christian Norse society practiced “tribal socialism,” a system supposedly combining “freedom of self-expression,” “private enterprise,” and “encouragement for every member of the tribe to reach his fullest potential” with socialist concerns of sharing resources, responsibilities, and caring for the young, the elderly, and the disabled of the tribe. A “race conscious” free society will put the “interest of the racial community before those of any individual” as “individuals will die [while] the Race has the potential for immortality” (“Neo-­ Tribalism” 1979; “Racial Consciousness” 1984). Christensen (interview 1998) argues that this has “nothing to do with fantasies of white supremacy.” The doctrine of supremacy, the argument runs, leads invariably to ambitions of world dominion and thus to racial coexistence and race-mixing. Better then to keep the races apart to develop according to their unique racial souls in relation to their various ecological habitats. Christensen connects the imperative of racial consciousness with the necessity of environmental awareness. Materialism, consumerism, and the

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capitalist exploitation of nature have brought on an ecological crisis of global magnitude that she believes could only be reversed by implementing a pagan back-to-earth program of retribalization and ecologically sustainable production. Through Christensen’s philosophy runs a streak of preoccupation with purity, peculiar to the National Socialist version of environmental concern. A chain of idealized pure entities links macro and micro cosmos, emphasizing the postulated interdependence of the purity of mind-bodyrace-environment. Thus, a pure individual nurtures a pure mind in a pure body and lives in purity with an equally pure partner in a pure (i.e., heterosexual and monoracial) relationship. This pure family provides a wholesome environment for bringing up pure and healthy children and is the primary building block of a pure racial organism living in harmony with a pure, unpolluted ecological system. Compatible with the all-American longing for the simple lifestyle of the free yeoman in the “good old days,” Christensen envisions a future return to “small-town America” without monstrous cities and industrial pollution. Small-scale family farms would replace agribusiness and, freed from federal tyranny, white Americans would secure individual happiness through their natural industriousness in a Jeffersonian—though folkish pagan—utopia. To get there, Christensen outlines a long-term strategy of establishing small intentional communities of racist pagans that should avoid federal attention by keeping a low political profile. Regional networks of independent folk communities could then serve as springboards to meaningful activism. Self-­ sufficient, ecological sustainable monoracial tribes would, Christensen suggests, be a practical avenue to redefine American federalism aiming at establishing an Odinist union of Aryan republics. In the early 1980s, Christensen began a prison outreach ministry. Within a few years, she got Odinism to be officially accepted as a legitimate religion in the state of Florida, which enabled her to send in literature and hold services. Serving at seven Florida prisons with Odinist congregations ranging from 5 to 50 members, Christensen was a forerunner whose example has been emulated by other racist pagans. In 1993, Christensen was sentenced to five years in prison for drug trafficking—a sentence widely believed to be political in the racist pagan community—and was then deported to Canada. Upon her release, Christensen adopted an even lower politically low profile. Members of the revived Odinist Fellowship now have to sign a statement, affirming that they intend to stay “within the legal laws of the country” of residence, and the Odinist Fellowship avoids the word “Aryan” in public communications. Thus distancing herself from the racist pagan milieu she was part of establishing, Christensen withdrew as a revered icon and left the banner of



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radical racist paganism to be carried further by more outspoken ideologues, including the Wotansvolk.

Wotansvolk A prominent voice of racially based Odinism is Wotansvolk, established in early 1995 by David and Katja Lane and Ron McVan. With headquarters at a mountain outside St. Maries, a small lumber town southeast of Coeur d’Alene in northern Idaho, Wotansvolk evolved into a dynamic propaganda center spreading its message throughout the United States and abroad and ran a quite successful prison outreach program catering to several thousand heathen prisoners in US penitentiaries. A number of pagan white power bands have put Wotansvolk lyrics to music, including Darken’s Creed of Iron album or Dissident’s song “Roots of Being” on the album A Cog in the Wheel. In line with the white power pattern of fragmentation and infighting, Wotansvolk split in 2002 after an internal schism and the administration was transferred to John Post in Napa, California, whose leadership remained contested. Based on fieldwork in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the presentation herein is confined to its first phase. Wotansvolk combines an Aryan call to arms with an esoteric teaching, based in part on Jungian psychology, völkisch philosophy, and occult National Socialism. An early proponent of the ZOG theory, Lane claimed that the US administration had come under the control of a secret cabal of racial enemies, using its military might to establish a global Jewish dictatorship. Convinced that Aryan man is an endangered species, David Lane (1938–2007) coined the “14 words” as a rallying point for a pan-Aryan uprising: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” The motto has taken hold in the global white power scene, as evidenced by the almost universal reference to the 14 words in poems, lyrics, articles, and books and to the common racist habit of signing a letter 14/88 (meaning the 14 words and Heil Hitler, as ”H” is the alphabet’s eight letter). Aiming at a white revolution, Wotansvolk endorsed the “leaderless resistance” strategy originally developed by Klan veteran Louis Beam, a longtime friend of the Lane family. In its Wotansvolk version, it involves the tactical separation between an open propaganda arm and a paramilitary underground. The function of the overt part is to “counter system sponsored propaganda, to educate the Folk, to provide a man pool from which the covert or military arm can be [recruited].” Since the open racial propagandist “will be under scrutiny,” Lane (1994: 26–27) emphasizes that cadres involved need to “operate within the [legal] parameters” and keep “rigidly separated” from the military

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underground. The paramilitary “must operate in small, autonomous cells, the smaller the better, even one man alone.” Revolutionary activity means utilizing “fire, bombs, guns, terror, disruption and destruction. Weak points in the infrastructure of an industrialized society are primary targets. Whatever and whoever perform valuable service for the system are targets, human or otherwise. Special attention and merciless terror are visited upon those White men who commit race treason.” Lane (interview 1996) is indifferent that his message might inspire the likes of Timothy McVeigh (who was convicted for the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 persons, including 15 children): In the coming revolution there will be no innocents. There are only those who are for our cause and those who are our enemies. [The masses] will either follow us or follow them. They are now following their terrorism. When the time comes that our terrorism is superior to theirs, they will follow us. They will worship and adore whoever is the greater tyrant. That’s the nature of the masses. The current weakness of Aryan man is attributed to Christianity, a creed “diametrically opposed the natural order” (Lane interview 1996). “God is not love. God the Creator made lions to eat lambs; he made hawks to eat sparrows. Compassion between species is against the law of nature. Life is struggle and the absence of struggle is death.” If Aryans are to survive, the otherworldly and self-denying Christianity must be abandoned in favor of Odinism; a religion based on nature’s order; “a natural religion” that “preaches war, plunder and sex.” This uncompromising rhetoric designed by Lane to reach the lowbrow warrior cast of the white power scene is combined with an esoteric teaching that at its core is ariosophic race mysticism. Developed by Ron McVan (b.1950), an artist and former associate of Ben Klassen, Wotansvolk ariosophy is outlined in Creed of Iron (1997) and Temple of Wotan (2000). Dissatisfied with the multiracial reworking of the American nation, Wotansvolk aims at “reaching deep into the ancestral past” to reconnect with the “roots of the Aryan race” in order to redevelop a lost “folk consciousness” (McVan interview 1996). Wotanism is presented as “the inner voice of the Aryan soul, which links the infinite past with the infinite future” (McVan 1997: 2). Accordingly, McVan (1997: 29) believes that “all Aryans today retain an element of Wotan consciousness,” a revival of which would liberate the white man. To Wotansvolk, Wotan (the Germanic name for Odin) symbolizes “the essential soul and spirit of the Aryan folk made manifest” (McVan interview 1999). As an iron-willed warrior God, Wotan is said to instill in the white



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race the determination and heroic qualities necessary to arise victoriously in the ongoing race war. Wotansvolk cast their work as a continuation of the efforts of turn of the century Ariosophist Guido von List, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung, aiming at returning Aryan man to his perceived true nature. Wotansvolk teaches that each race is by nature unique and given distinct qualities truly their own. To survive and evolve along the desired path of racial greatness, a race must be animated by its “racial soul,” a genetically transmitted spiritual heritage, understood as a race-specific Jungian collective unconscious. “Every race has its soul and every soul its race” (McVan n.d. “Death”). Engraved in each racial member are powerful archetypes that may be reached through performing the rituals and ceremonies developed by the ancestors in times immemorial. These archetypes are the Gods of the Blood, who will exist as long as there are living members of the race. To the individual Aryan, the meeting with these archetypical forces recharges divine energy that man may evolve into the realization of the Nietzschean superman. Odinism here equals the rope over the abyss, connecting man the Beast with the Superman. “Through Wotanism one may experience the infinitude of life mysteries and the divine completion of [Aryan] man,” McVan (1998) asserts. There is no ontological distinction separating Aryan man and Aryan gods. They are conceived of as kin, differing in power rather than nature. Personifying the divine essence of Aryan man, the significance of Wotan expands beyond his warrior aspect. He is the master of gnosis who invites man to pursue the upward ariosophic path of perfection. In the occult National Socialism tradition of Miguel Serrano, Karl Maria Wiligut and Alfred Rosenberg, McVan cultivates the “mystery of the blood,” believing that unmixed Aryan blood carries genetic memories of the racial lineage with all its gods, demi-gods, and heroes of the aboriginal Golden Age. Reconnected with the archetypical gods of the blood and developing his mental powers, “man is able to awaken to a divinity which flows within him” (McVan n.d. “Mind”). To the race, the rapport with its collective unconscious is a necessary prerequisite for keeping its identity and mission as a unique spiritual being. “A race without its mythos and religion of the blood shifts aimlessly through history” (McVan 1997: 16). Operating with a less complex concept of cyclical time than Helena Petro3 vna Blavatsky, Miguel Serrano and Savatri Devi, McVan’s ideas still reflect the basic structure of an aboriginal Aryan golden age, fall, cleansing and renewal, universal to the world of racist paganism. Although a believer in the ­pre-historic Aryan civilizations of Hyperborea and Atlantis, the primary focus of McVan’s historiography is closer to our present age, detailing how the once glorious Aryan high culture was cast down into the present Wolf Age following the

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demise of the Norse gods in the previous Ragnarök. In the tradition of Yockey and Christensen, McVan argues that the primary cause of the fall was spiritual. With the advent of Jewish Christianity, there began a dramatic process of degeneration. “If ever there were a birth of tragedy, it was when Aryan man turned his back on the indigenous Gods of his race,” McVan writes (1999). “On that day he sacrificed the very roots of his being, ushering in the labyrinth of his own descent.” The level of folk consciousness gradually diminished and the metaphysical race lost knowledge of itself as race. Following a selective reading of Jung, Wotansvolk asserts that the Aryan gods never died but remained dormant through the centuries of Christian dominion, deeply ­ ­embedded in the Aryan psyche. With the völkisch revival of the late nineteenth century and the rise of the National Socialist movement, the archetypical forces again began to manifest. Paraphrasing Jung, Wotansvolk likens Wotan to a long quiescent volcano that at any moment may forcibly resume its activity. With overwhelming power, the suppressed Gods of the Blood will return with a vengeance, Wotansvolk says confidently (“Wotan” n.d.), pointing to the ascendancy of Hitler as an historical example: “Nowhere since Viking times has the direct, singular effect of Wotan consciousness been more evident than in the folkish unity of National Socialist Germany.” Wotansvolk recommends that its followers practice daily meditation as the technique by which “the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired and union with the great gods of our folk is eventually gained.” In this field, we encounter noticeable Hindu and Buddhist influences, although in the watered down version prolific in the Western milieu of alternative spirituality. Much like Serrano, McVan envisions Aryan man as a universe with all its worlds, as a microcosmic reflection of Yggdrasil, evolving toward perfection. Along the spine are found seven energy centers, “wheels” or “gateways,” each associated with a specific rune. The spiritual ascendancy of individual man begins with meditation using these chakras of the Runic Tree of Man as contemplative focuses. In addition to individual practice, adherents to Wotansvolk philosophy are encouraged to connect with the archetypical gods through communal pagan ceremonies. “The practice of Wotanism ritual and ceremony of the annual festivals is recognized as the most effective way of impressing on our Aryan folk the wisdom, ethics and customs of our ancestors. Celebrating our indigenous traditions is as ancient as our race and is essential to our identity, unity, and survival as a people” (McVan 1997: 142). Wotansvolk performs the generic heathen “blot” ceremonies that celebrate the cycles of nature, but differs from other Norse pagans in the explicit racial dimension. During a 1998 Midsummer blot conducted at Wotansvolk headquarters, participants hailed the coming “day of resurrection” of Balder, which will “usher in the new age



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of light for Aryan man after Ragnarök.” “The wheel of life keeps turning,” a participant recited loudly, his voice quavering dramatically as a kerosene soaked swastika was set ablaze. “And in nature’s cycle spins creation. Blazing like the sun’s great disk, emanations of the high god Balder, a time of sanctification, [highlighting] the mystical nature of race and blood, carriers of primordial substances. The wheel of life keeps turning—the wheel of life keeps turning. I greet the summer solstice and the promise of a Golden Age.” Another significant ritual is the initiation ritual by which a prospect is accepted into the Einherjar fraternity (McVan 2000). Einherjar is a Norse term for the brave warriors who died in battle and were brought to Valhalla, the abode of Odin. In Wotansvolk terminology, it denotes the community of racial warriors who are willing to die in the revolutionary war to establish an Aryan homeland. In the outdoors initiation ceremony, participants should preferably dress in Viking-inspired clothing and carry their swords. After setting up the sacred circle, the ritual leader (gothi) invites the gods to “open the mighty gates of Valhalla, Hall of Wotan’s chosen warriors, Fearless fighting elite, Pride of the Valkyries,” and then bring before them those who have died in battle the name of the initiate. Asking the Einherjar to accept the initiate into their ranks, the gothi places a sword flat on top of the initiate’s head as he kneels down on one knee. The gothi turns to the initiate. “Before our gods and chosen warriors, do you pledge by your solemn word that you shall always uphold with honor, dignity and courage the lifelong commitment to Wotan’s Einherjar?” Confirming his pledge, the initiate then stands, and the gothi places the sword point at the nape of the initiate’s neck to symbolize that death is better than dishonoring his commitment. The initiate is then blindfolded and brought before the lords of Valhalla among which he now enters. Removing the blindfold, the gothi with his thumb presses oil on the initiate’s head and gives him the blessings of Odin. Proclaiming that the initiate now is a member of Wotan’s Einherjar, the gothi then places a sword in the outstretched arms of the initiate. “Through this sword, ancestors of a thousand ages fill thy being” the gothi says and concludes with all participants repeating in chorus: “Hail Wotan! Victory or Valhalla!” Wotansvolk runs a prison outreach ministry recognized as an official vendor by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and by a majority of state prison authorities, and remained a top priority to the new Wotansvolk administration of John Post. There are Wotansvolk prison congregations—“kindreds”—in every state, including the dozen states where Wotanism/Asatrú/Odinism has not yet been permitted full religious recognition. Prisoners incarcerated in those states are encouraged by Wotansvolk to challenge state regulations in court. In Utah, Ohio, and Wisconsin, legal battles are currently being waged

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for religious rights and the full recognition of Asatrú as a legitimate religion. As of January 30, 2001, Wotansvolk catered to more than 5,000 prisoners. The states with the strongest presence of Wotansvolk prison kindreds were Arizona, California, Texas, Michigan, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, where three to five hundred Wotansvolk prisoners were found in 4 each state. The Wotansvolk prison outreach ministry had grown with remarkable speed. When I first visited Wotansvolk headquarters in the fall of 1996, there were less than a hundred prison kindreds. By the year 2000, it was more than three hundred. Judging from reviewing correspondence between hundreds of individual prisoners and the Wotansvolk headquarters, there seems to be a pagan revival among the white prison population, including the conversion of whole prison gangs to the ancestral religion. To some extent, prison authorities have unwittingly facilitated the Wotansvolk effort by breaking up prison kindreds and transferring leading heathens to other prisons previously without an organized pagan presence. The determined Wotansvolk prison outreach program has earned them a reputation in the world of folkish paganism as being primarily a prison organization. According to Katja Lane (interview 1999), this is far from accurate, as prisoners constitute only an estimated 20 percent of Wotansvolkers in the United States. Yet, the observation has some validity in the sense that Wotansvolk seems comparatively more successful in its outreach efforts than other Asatrú/Odinist programs, which partly may be explained with the reputation of David Lane and the legendary Brüders Schweigen, in the white power culture. Wotansvolk donate literature, videos, and ceremonial artifacts to assist prison kindreds in holding regular religious service, study circles, and seasonal ceremonies. In addition, Katja Lane corresponds with prison chaplains, sends them complimentary material on request, and assists inmates legally challenge prison authorities if denied full recognition of Asatrú/Odinism as a legitimate religion. In numerous cases, inmates who have been denied receiving Wotansvolk literature, books on runes, or wearing heathen symbols have been advised how to proceed legally, as have prisoners whose heathen material has been confiscated by prison guards. Her campaigning has contributed to the fact that all states now permit the wearing of a Thór’s hammer as a religious medallion. In March 2002, the new Wotansvolk administrator John Post announced the formation of the National Prison Kindred Alliance, a joint effort of Wotansvolk and a number of independent Asatrú/Odinist tribal networks aiming at proving a more efficient prison outreach ministry and concerting the efforts of gaining increased religious rights and freedoms for the pagan community behind bars. Imprisoned Order member Richard Scutari (2000) provides an



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illustration from the inside; describing the kindred activities at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California, after authorities approved Odinism as a legitimate religion in 1997: “What was presented to the men spoke to their soul and we averaged from 50 to 55 prisoners at each weekly meeting. We were not only teaching the religion of our ancestors, but were also teaching White culture and White history. We even did a periodic segment we called ‘Heroes of the Ages’ in which we told the stories of different White heroes of the past, such as Horatius, Leonidas, Hermann, Vercingetorix, Adolf Hitler [and] Bob Mathews.” Reflecting on the success of the Wotansvolk prison outreach program, Katja Lane (interview 1997) elaborates: Most of the males who still have their instinct as warriors, protectors, defenders or their nation, their womenfolk and their children; these men are the ones who find themselves in prison. They’re virtually on the front-line of the battle for the preservation or our race and they are the first casualties. And there you’ll find some of the most fervent interest in Odinism. Men in prison, not having to take time to make a living for their families, take time to love their wives and deal with daily problems, turn inward and look for their spiritual soul, and, so those two factors have created a very strong Wotanist presence in the prisons. Prisons, as you know, are very racially tense . . . and usually violent. The men need a sense of their own identity and having an expression for it. So, nearly every prison now, both state and federal, has a kindred, and in nearly every case . . . Odinism or Wotanism, are now officially recognized [by the prison authorities].

Notes 1. Creativity is the brainchild of Ukrainan-born Florida realtor Ben Klassen (1918– 1993), self-appointed Pontifex Maximus of the Church of the Creator (COTC), founded in 1973. Although basically an atheist, Klassen observed that religion has been a constant feature of all known cultures of man and concluded that the only feasible choice was between “bad” and “good” religion, defined according to their role in promoting racial loyalty and survival in a hostile world. “What is good for the White Race is the highest virtue, what is bad for the White Race is the highest sin.” The white man, Klassen taught, needs to realize that “(a) We are embroiled in a racial war for survival on this Planet Earth. (b) All mud races are our enemies in this fight for survival. (c) The Jews are leading and orchestrating this war against us; and (d) The Christian Churches are their most

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ardent ally and most potent weapon.” Christianity was to Klassen a “Jewish creation,” “designed to unhinge and derange White Gentile intellect” by promoting suicidal advices to “love your enemy,” “turn the other cheek,” and “compassion” for the weak; a “theology of mass insanity” based on superstitious beliefs in “spooks in the sky” and unsubstantiated theories about life beyond death. Klassen outlined the basic creed of Creativity in the three “holy books,” Nature’s Eternal Religion (1973), the White Man’s Bible (1981), and Salubrious Living (1982) and a rich production of secondary writings. In line with the general heath fad of the 1980s, Klassen issued a “salubrious living” program. To secure a wholesome life free from cancer and other diseases, Klassen prescribed fasting, physical exercise, sufficient resting and a fruitarian diet of organically grown uncooked and unprocessed fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts. Issuing the battle cry RaHoWa (Racial Holy War), Klassen hoped that his healthy racist elite would ignite a worldwide white revolution to “expand the White Race, shrink the colored races, until the White Race is the supreme inhabitant of the earth.” The realities of the Church of the Creator stand in sharp contrast to the grandiose visions of its Pontifex Maximus. Investing a substantial part of his personal fortune, Klassen in 1982 established a “World Creativity Center” at Otto in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, founded the Racial Loyalty tabloid and distributing his books (often free of charge). A mail order seminar offered members to become Reverends for a small fee. Continuing education and military training in the paramilitary White Berets was offered at headquarters. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, COTC began attracting the new generation Aryan activists. Spread by acts involved with the white power music scene, its membership increasingly became dominated by youth, skinheads, and prisoners. Abroad, COTC missionary activities produced chapters in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Yet, the COTC remained miniscule with a worldwide membership of less than five thousand, out of which a couple of hundreds were ordained Ministers. Organizationally, the effort was hampered not least by financial difficulties and Klassen’s stubborn reluctance to delegate power and responsibilities. By 1993, Klassen concluded that he had done his chore. The White Man’s Bible recommends suicide as a dignified way to die, much preferable to prolonging a life that no longer is worth living. Following the death of its founder, COTC split in several competing factions. In July 1996, a less-than-successful rebuilding process commenced with law student Matt Hale of the World Church of the Creator as the new Pontifex Maximus. 2. For a detailed history of this process, see Gardell 2003a, b; Devi 1958; Serrano 1978, 1984a, b 1991; Goodwin 1996; and Goodrick-Clarke 1998. 3. Miguel Serrano and Savatri Devi are two proponents of occult National Socialism. See Gardell 2003a. 4. Records provided by Katja Lane, 2001.



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Bibliography i n t ervi ews Christensen, Else. 1998. Interview by author. Tape recording. Parksville, BC, Canada, August 7. Hale, Matt. 1999. Interview by author. Tape recording. Superior, Montana, September 4. Lane, David. 1996. Interview by author. Tape recording. Florence, Colorado. November 12. Lane, Katja. 1997. Interview by author. Tape recording. St. Maries, Idaho, May 6. ———. 1999. Interview by author. Notes. St. Maries, Idaho, October 14. McVan, Ron. 1996. Interview by author. Tape recording. St. Maries, Idaho, September 25. ———. 1999. Interview by author. Notes. St. Maries, Idaho, October 13. Yarbrough, Gay. 1997. Interview by author. Notes. Leavenworth, Kansas, April 15.

pr i n t ed s ou rces “Aryan Freedom.” 1983. The Odinist, no. 77. Christensen, Else. 1984. “Odinism—Religion of Relevance.” The Odinist, no. 82. Devi, Savitri. 1958. The Lightening and the Sun. Niagara Falls, NY: Samsidat. Gardell, Mattias. 2003a. Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ———. 2003b. “White Power.” Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies, edited by Ellis Cashmore. London: Routledge. Godwin, Joscelyn. 1996. Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism and Nazi Survival. Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 1992. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology. London: I. B. Taurus. ———. 1998. Hitler’s Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism. New York: New York University Press. Klassen, Ben. 1981. The White Man’s Bible. Otto, NC: Church of the Creator. ———. 1987. RaHoWa! This Planet Is All Ours. Otto, NC: The Church of the Creator. ———. [1973] 1992. Nature’s Eternal Religion. Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Church of the Creator. Klassen, Ben, and Arnold DeVries. 1982. Salubrious Living. Otto, NC: Church of the Creator. Lane, David. 1994. Revolution by the Number 14. St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press. ———. 1999. Deceived, Damned and Defiant: The Revolutionary Writings of David Lane. St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press. McVan, Ron. n.d. “Death.” Folder. St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press.

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McVan, Ron. n.d “Mind.” Folder. St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press. ———. 1997. Creed of Iron: Wotansvolk Wisdom. St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press. ———. 1998. “Haminga.” Folder, St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press. ———. 1999. “Religion: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.” Folder. St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press. ———. 2000. Temple of Wotan: Holy Book of the Aryan Tribes. St. Maries: ID: 14 Word Press. Mills, Rud A. 1957. The Call of Our Ancient Nordic Religion. Repr. Union Bay, BC: Wodanesdag Press. “Neo Tribalism.” 1979. The Odinist, no. 43. “Odinism and Racial Politics.” 1985. The Odinist, no. 91. “Racial Consciousness.” 1984. The Odinist, no. 83. Scutari, Richard. 2000. “Unbroken Spirit.” Focus Fourteen, January. Serrano, Miguel. 1978. El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico. Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Solar. ———. 1984a. Adolf Hitler, el Último Avatára. Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Solar. ———. 1984b. NOS: Book of the Resurrection. London: Routledge. ———. 1991. Manú: “Por el hombre que vendra.” Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Solar. “W.O.T.A.N. Will of the Aryan Nation.” n.d. Folder. St. Maries, ID: 14 Word Press. Yockey, Francis Parker (aka Ulrik Varange). [1962] 1991. Imperium. Costa Mesa, CA: Noontide Press.

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Carnal, Chthonian, Complicated the matter of modern satanism Jesper Aa. Petersen . . . just when Scientology seemed the peak of the celebrityendorsed religious craze, now we’re introduced to OTO, an even more bizarre sex-based religion favored by the rich and famous, according to The Daily Mail. It’s kind of . . . well, it’s, uh, Satanism. John Travolta and his hairplugs aren’t looking so weird now, huh? anna breslaw, “The New Celebrity Religious Fad Is, Uhh, a Satanist Sex Cult”

the rumors about Peaches Geldof started swirling in the spring of 2013. As reported by several newspapers and European celebrity websites, the wild daughter of renowned British rock star Bob Geldof had allegedly involved herself with a satanic sex cult called “OTO.” Fueled by a heady mix of celebrity involvement, conspiracy, sexual rituals, and black magic, speculation quickly caught on, gradually turning darker when the initial dismissal of the young debutante’s lack of proper taste and judgment became the threat of cult crime and damnation to young fashion fans. What started off as a “cult” steadily became a “sex-cult,” a “satanic sex-cult,” and finally a “sado-masochistic satanic sex-cult.” Two inoffensive Internet posts on the image networking sites Twicsy and Instagram formed the basis of this brief media frenzy. In the summer of 2011, Peaches Geldof posted a picture of a heart-shaped tattoo with the initials O.T.O. inscribed within. Yet nothing really happened until two years later, when she made another post linking to a picture; this time the seven-pointed

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seal of the thelemic order A.A. (Astron Argon or Silver Star) with the text “#93 #Thelema #o.t.o for all my fellow Thelemites on instagram!”1 As the celebrity tabloids quickly uncovered, the O.T.O., the A.A., and the religion of Thelema are all connected to the notorious twentieth-century magician Aleister Crowley, whose life of sexual experiments, drug use, and radical magical practice has made him the perennial stereotypical Satanist in the press. As the story went, the Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of Oriental Templars) was the most recent stage of Peaches’s crazy journey of sex, drugs, and odd religion, including previous visits to Scientology and Kabbalah. Now, she had settled with “the OTO religion” doing “red-hot kinky rituals” with the “legion of show-biz fans” while “urging” her fans to buy Crowley’s books in an attempt to promote her newfound beliefs (Dunkerly 2013). Not surprisingly the satanic connection was replaced by rosy-red news about childbirth after a month of moral panic, proving the ephemeral nature of celebrity journalism. However, it is more relevant to note that the story of Peaches Geldof and the “satanic” O.T.O. is both drawing upon and reinforcing established connections in popular culture linking Satanism, obscenity, and danger. Behind the relativism and rationality of late modern Western society, an instinctive morality built on recognizable Christian elements provokes us into stereotyping Satanism and Satanists as at worst inherently and radically evil or at best utterly shallow and absurd. This popular discourse on Satanism thus propagates specific understandings tied to the underlying Christian frame of reference, with clear-cut boxes delimiting good and evil. Taking the implications of the story of Peaches Geldof as my starting point, the following chapter is a discussion of self-declared Satanism as a religious worldview in its own right. If we are to understand the people involved, it is important to bracket the Christian worldview and rid ourselves of the instinctive categorization that underlies the popular understanding of Satanism. The chapter begins with a discussion of location and ownership of the “satanic,” which provides a framework for the study as a whole. Next, a short historical outline of the “satanic milieu” and a presentation of some groups and spokespersons within it are provided. This is followed by a discussion of connecting themes, beliefs, and practices to synthesize the form and contents of “satanic discourse.” Finally, some suggestions for future research are formulated.

Tracing and Untangling the Satanic The case of Peaches Geldof’s apparent involvement in a satanic sex cult highlights a complicated entanglement that needs to be addressed before moving on: the misattribution of Satanism to comparable phenomena exactly because



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of the implied understanding of Satanism in Western culture. From a sociological perspective, the Ordo Templi Orientis is neither satanic nor representative of modern Satanism. This is not to say that the organization’s beliefs and practices are devoid of ideas deliberately targeting what they consider Christian hypocrisy or material hardline Christians have judged to be diabolical, as even a cursory look at Crowley’s books and sanctioned rituals will attest. Nevertheless the entire O.T.O. “complex” is as satanic as contemporary Paganism, New Age groups, or self-help spirituality. Certain doctrinal and structural similarities with contemporary Satanism certainly exist; in essence, however, these are separate currents with common ancestors, occasionally borrowing from each other.2 Modern Satanism is a conglomerate of ideas and practices expressed in distinctive ways by groups and individuals within a broader satanic milieu.3 Although both the groups and the underlying ideas may be difficult to press into a unified mold, they nonetheless display characteristic philosophical and indeed religious aspirations. As a starting point for discussion, modern Satanism can be understood as a heterogeneous, yet distinct product of the meeting between modern rationality and Western esotericism.4 In this sense, religious Satanism is a special variant of the self-spirituality or self-religion widespread in secular societies in late modernity, characterized by an emphasis on the individual, a tendency for world affirmation, and a rejection of religious dogma and institutions (Petersen 2009b: 1–4). In the words of Paul Heelas, the self-­spirituality found in the New Age movement is built on “the monistic assumption that the Self itself is sacred,” which results in a “general agreement that it is essential to shift from our contaminated mode of being—what we are by virtue of ­socialization—to that realm which constitutes our authentic nature” (1996: 2). This resonates with the founder of the Church of Satan, who declares that: Man needs ritual and dogma, but no law states that an externalized god is necessary in order to engage in ritual and ceremony performed in a god’s name! Could it be that when he closes the gap between himself and his “God” he sees the demon of pride creeping forth [?] . . . He no longer can view himself in two parts, the carnal and the spiritual, but sees them merge as one, and then to his abysmal horror, discovers that they are only the carnal—AND ALWAYS WERE! Then he either hates himself to death, day by day—or rejoices that he is what he is! (LaVey 1969: 45) Consequently, even though the definition of “authentic nature” might be very different, modern Satanism shares an orientation toward the realization of that authentic nature of the individual in opposition to the repression of

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modern society with many occult and alternative currents. For Satanists, this nature is symbolically expressed in the dual nature of Satan as Adversary and Ruler of Earth—the prototypical nonconformist, hedonist, and individualist— without necessarily subscribing to the overarching cultural Christian framework of the Devil. Hence, Satanism becomes a combination of positive and negative elements, mixing constructive religious aspirations centered on the individual with critical anti-authoritarian and transgressive convictions, neither of which can be reduced to nihilism, generic counterculture, or inverse Christianity.5 But this is not the whole story. In a wider cultural perspective, the Christian framework affects the way we engage with the antinomian and unusual. There seems to be an unstated premise in mainstream media that by using the adjective “satanic,” something good becomes bad and something bad becomes worse. A “sex cult” might be horrible, but a “satanic sex cult” is monstrous. On the one hand, this is a natural consequence of the largely imaginary cultural narratives of Satanists and witches, connected to the theology of Christianity and to a lesser extent Islam and Judaism (Medway 2001).6 On the other hand, it is important to acknowledge that these narratives are actively appropriated and reinterpreted over time by Satanists and non-Satanists alike; historical metaphors become mythical realities, to paraphrase Marshall Sahlins.7 Thus, the cultural discourse on alleged Devil worship and the mythical function of medieval atrocity stories in the Western world must be distinguished from the actual discourse and practice of Satanists found today. The latter uses the same figure in a different sociological context, that of the oppressed minority, and with a different mythological goal, that of identity and legitimation. I have found that modern Satanism is best described inclusively when viewed as a social and cultural phenomenon, and exclusively when viewed as a religious and philosophical one. To the majority, the cultural discourse on the satanic implies a certain set of anti-values, practices, and associations connected to enemies of the faithful. The attribution of atrocity stories and diabolical adjectives is an especially poignant way of “othering” in an ultimate sense, promoting the virtues of society by highlighting someone else as “evil” or even “the wholly Other” (Frankfurter 2006). Whether it is Satanism in popular culture (as when some heavy metal groups, role-playing games, movies, or television series use “occult” or even overtly satanic iconography, references, or plotlines to sell material) or it is Satanism as popular culture (found in subcultures dabbling with forbidden emotions and desires), it is based on society’s fears and prohibitions. As a result, this discourse is a pervasive, socially enforced, and culturally amplified “Satan code” about dark forces,



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rooted in religious conceptions of evil yet integrating popular mythology, psychology, and history in a diffuse blend (Partridge 2005: ch. 6). Satanists offer an alternative interpretation of this state of affairs. Although they relate to the “Satan code,” it is actively redefined in satanic discourse into positive images of self. We are thus dealing with interpretations combining old and new discourses on the satanic with satanic meaning-making and identity. This is possible because the “satanic” holds a certain allure, even outside satanic circles, due to an intensifying process of sanitization. Simply speaking, countercultural currents of the past three centuries have actively used Satan as a symbol of opposition in political, religious, and cultural contexts, thus gradually separating the antinomian and antiauthoritarian from the obscene and destructive.8 Satan might be dark and terrible, but he also signifies autonomy, sexuality, creativity, and rebellion, all of which are positive traits in the modern world. Reinterpreted, Satan implies humanity, both good and bad—a somewhat darker manifestation of the human, to be sure, but not inherently evil. That said, heterogeneity and disagreement far outweighs commonality in contemporary Satanism as a whole. Some satanic groups focus on philosophical issues, using thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Ayn Rand as well as the natural and social sciences to formulate a coherent materialistic and atheistic worldview with morals to match. As human beings composed of flesh and gifted with consciousness as well as emotion, we must embrace our individuality and devote ourselves to the cultivation of our unique creative instincts and carnal desires. This is the philosophy of the outsider, the free-thinker, and the rebel, ever aspiring to break free from the bounds of conventionality and the slave morality embodied in the Christian Church and “liberal” society. Here, Satan is both the rebel and the life force or vitality of the self, interpreted as a symbol that expresses the continuing thread of defiance against common norms and rigid dogma. Followers close to this composite type could be called rationalist Satanists. Other groups highlight the spiritual side, drawing upon Eastern and Western traditions with a mystical angle, such as Tantric Hinduism and Buddhism, Chaos Magick, and the writings of Kenneth Grant, Aleister Crowley, and Austin Osman Spare. This complex of ideas and practices is commonly referred to as the Left-Hand Path of ritual magic, in contrast to the Right-Hand Path of ceremonial magic and “white light” witches.9 The Left-Hand Path is described as more intuitive and chthonian in scope, focusing on the darker, corporal, and feminine aspects of reality. The aim of this path, according to Richard Sutcliffe, is a “liberation of the individual through deconditioning and, ultimately, gnosis.” He continues: “while there is undoubtedly an antinomian ethos in the

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Left Hand Path magick, the transgression of mores and taboos has more to do with the overcoming of one’s own inhibitions and limitations, which are seen to be bound up with socialization, than with any ill-conceived anarchism. . . . [I]t is aimed at self-transmutation through the experience of the totality of being” (1995: 111). Satanists drawing on these currents employ Satan as a real or archetypical manifestation of our path toward total, authentic being, a mystical project achieved through the desensitization to social norms and values best understood as a part of Western esotericism. Thus, they could be called esoteric Satanists. Categories such as rationalist and esoteric are of course ideal types, challenged by the reality of modern Satanism as a plurality of interpretations which are often crossing the neat borders of academic classification by including some and excluding others from their specific view of Satanism proper.10 I shall return to these matters later; the preceding comments are, on the one hand, key concepts intended to help readers grasp the subject in its totality, and, on the other, a warning that a study in modern Satanism is in many ways a study of Satanisms conjoined not so much in surface manifestations but rather in a discursive depth structure of individuality, rebellion, and Otherness symbolized in the figure of Satan.

Modern Religious Satanism: A Historical and Sociological Portrait The history of modern Satanism is comparable with the history of most new religious movements that mushroomed on the North American continent in the 1960s and 1970s. The problem, as stated above, is that Satanism lacks organizational and even doctrinal coherence, making it a milieu with many faces rather than a unified subculture or movement. The satanic milieu should be understood as a broader environment or landscape upheld by partly overlapping activities and networks, such as books, magazines, websites, spokespersons, media products, and so on (Campbell 1972; Petersen 2009c). These activities predate the individual or group and will exist after they are gone, yet they encourage an abstract commonality through common references and tastes which bind them together. The satanic milieu is both local and global, as it is anchored in specific activities and scenes, on the one hand, and international trends, on the other. Similarly, the boundaries to analogous currents mentioned earlier, such as the thelemic or neo-pagan milieu, are not definite, but are constantly renegotiated. This section will describe the development of modern Satanism in brief and provide a sociological profile on some major formations that have significantly affected the development of the milieu as a whole.



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History The vast majority of the stories of Satanism and Satanists before the twentieth century amount to mythological constructions based on doubtful testimonies and theological speculation (Medway 2001). Of course, this has also provided a template for people interested in challenging this order and thus appropriating the dominant Christian discourse on the satanic for religious or transgressive purposes. For example, Mikael Häll (2013) has examined Swedish material from the early modern period to demonstrate that folk appropriations of Satan often ran counter to theological imaginations, yet took surprisingly sincere forms, barring any blanket rejection of individual “Satanists” before the modern era. There are also many early reinterpretations of the Christian template in literature and countercultural activities of the past couple of centuries. These can have an esoteric, political, and aesthetic character. Notable examples include the Romantic literary Satanism of Lord Byron and Percy B. Shelley (van Luijk 2013); the literature and activities of the Polish decadent Stanislaw Przybyszewski (Faxneld 2013b); the revolutionary thought of nineteenth-century Socialists (Faxneld, forthcoming); the occult speculations of Maria de Naglowska and her “satanic temple” (Introvigne 2010: 228–238); and the German Fraternitas Saturni in the early twentieth century (Flowers 1997: 147–152). Even Theosophy’s H. P. Blavatsky and aforementioned Aleister Crowley can be said to harbor a certain sympathy for the Devil, although it is marginal when taken in the context of their system as a whole. Nevertheless, modern religious Satanism is a surprisingly recent phenomenon whose history can be divided into three phases.11 In the first phase, from 1966 to 1975, organized Satanism emerged out of the broader occult milieu with the formation of the Church of Satan (CoS). Thus, the birth of modern Satanism can be traced to the actions of Anton Szandor LaVey (born Howard Stanton Levey in 1930), whose informal “Magic Circle” was transformed into the (in)famous CoS on Walpurgisnacht, April 30, 1966, in San Francisco. Quickly reacting to the enormous amount of media attention, he conducted a satanic wedding, funeral, and baptism, as well as weekly satanic rituals and courses on various occult topics, thereby gaining a solid membership. In 1969, LaVey published The Satanic Bible, the most influential satanic manifesto to date, followed by The Compleat Witch (1971) and The Satanic Rituals (1972). This first phase can be subdivided into a first half epitomized by the carnivalesque showmanship of LaVey and the elitist counterculture of the CoS (1966–1970), and a second half characterized by routinization resulting in mounting internal conflict in the church (1970–1975) (Petersen 2009c).

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The second phase, from 1975 to around 1997, is demarcated on one side by the dramatic schism in 1975 that resulted in the formation of the Temple of Set, and on the other side by the Internet boom of the mid-1990s and the death of LaVey in 1997. In the early 1970s, LaVey commenced a revision of the degree system, began chartering “grottos” (local organizations) for independent activities and withdrew from public appearances. This was a result of dissatisfaction with the side show of characters involved in the growing congregation resulting in an increase in church management and negative media attention. Other members were dissatisfied for different reasons: the increasingly atheistic ideology of the CoS and/or LaVey’s somewhat fickle administration of titles. Lead by Michael Aquino, a substantial group eventually split to form the esoteric and highly structured Temple of Set (ToS). The 1970s and 1980s saw the birth and decline of a huge number of smaller churches, temples, and orders that emerged in the wake of LaVey’s initial success, often simulating some aspects of the CoS while differing on others.12 The CoS itself made a turn toward Nazi-chic and “apocalypse culture” in the 1980s in an attempt to rejuvenate the conflict with the norms and values of Western society, but this was discontinued when LaVey resumed active control of the church in the early 1990s (Baddeley 2000: 212–213).13 The conflict was real enough, though, as a massive moral panic influenced public opinion in the 1980s and early 1990s; this affected not only self-­ declared satanic groups and individuals but also innocent victims of the ­satanic ritual abuse scare.14 The third phase, from 1997 to the present, is dominated by the upsurge of activity stimulated by the democratization of the Internet around 1995, which has increased the visibility of and communication between satanic groups and solitary practitioners. Encouraging creativity and discord simultaneously, the Internet radically altered the structure of the satanic milieu, as small minorities of one could construct an outlet potentially inspiring many. The result was, and is, a huge amount of virtual groups, message boards, websites, and Facebook pages, which prompted the larger organizations to protect their material and members by asserting their authority.15 Another important event was the death of Anton Szandor LaVey in 1997, which almost immediately caused unrest in the CoS. This was short-lived, though, as high-ranking members such as Blanche Barton, Peter H. Gilmore, and Peggy Nadramia assumed leadership, with Peter Gilmore as High Priest from 2001. Events like the forty-year anniversary High Mass held by the CoS at the Steve Allen theater on June 6, 2006, shows an increased interest in public presence; taken together with numerous contributions to documentaries and media stories by Gilmore and other members, the CoS seems intent on reclaiming the role as first and



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only representative of modern Satanism in the twenty-first century. Again, this has alienated some individuals from the church, further motivating the creation of new groups and networks, mainly online. This third phase could therefore be characterized by increased differentiation of satanic ideology as a whole and in the power structures of the milieu as information becomes available through virtual platforms, paralleled by an increased rhetoric of legitimation from the larger organizations (Petersen 2013b). To supplement this short historical presentation of the satanic milieu it is important to examine some central outlets in depth. I have selected the CoS and the ToS, as they constitute the major, stable organizations with doctrinal stability and official presence, and the Satanic Reds, as this group is a good illustration of how low-cost online Satanism revolves around a few spokespersons and core texts today.

Anton Szandor LaVey and the Church of Satan Much has been written on the charismatic high priest and his organization.16 From its humble beginnings in San Francisco in 1966, the CoS has attracted many interested in magic and the occult and has survived numerous schisms, exposés, and attacks from within and without. The history of the organization has already been outlined. Today the CoS is essentially a decentralized, cell-like structure where passive (registered) membership is attained by filling out a registration statement and paying two hundred dollars to the central administration. Individual members have as much contact with the organization as needed, and most members have little to do with the church, special interest groups, or social activities. The grotto system, reactivated in the 1990s, is again discontinued. First-level (active) membership and higher levels of involvement (titles such as Agent, or the degrees of Priest/Priestess, Magister/Magistra, and Magus/Maga) are very rare (see “Affiliation with the Church of Satan” on the church website). No exact membership figures are available, as the distributed structure and one-time registration fee makes it impossible to draw the line between active and inactive involvement. Active members probably number in the thousands worldwide, but many more may be registered and nearly one million have purchased The Satanic Bible (Baddeley 2000: 72).17 The CoS is officially governed by the Council of Nine, of which the High Priest, Peter H. Gilmore, the High Priestess, Peggy Nadramia, and the Magistra Templi Rex, Blanche Barton, are presumably members. Practically speaking, the members and associations are self-sufficient, and the council concentrates on matters of doctrine, general guidelines, and administration of Anton LaVey’s estate (through the Order of the Trapezoid). As such, the council is

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engaged in protecting the authority of LaVey’s writings and is only concerned with individual members’ beliefs and practices when they run counter to the interests of the church (warnings and even excommunications are not unheard of ). In that respect the CoS manifests a top-down doctrinal rigidity.18 Philosophically, the CoS can be classified as pragmatic and egoistic, a selfreligion focused on empowerment and self-realization for the “Alien Elite.” The central convictions of the CoS are formulated in short statements and rules found in LaVey’s books and articles that are constantly reproduced in articles and communiques: The Nine Satanic Statements, The Eleven Rules of the Earth, The Nine Satanic Sins, and the Pentagonal Revisionism program. Free will, carnal existence, and the unbridled creativity of the individual are lauded as central aspects of the human nature; the teachings are frequently clothed in arguments that are simultaneously materialistic, Darwinist, and atheistic, yet appealing to occult tradition as well (Dyrendal 2012; Faxneld 2013a; Petersen 2011b). The use of Satan is symbolic and points to the central doctrines of opposition to given norms and values, nonconformity, and Epicureanism in order to realize one’s self-interest. In “Satanism: The Feared Religion,” Peter H. Gilmore states: [W]e do not believe in the supernatural. To the Satanist, he is his own God. Satan is a symbol of Man living as his prideful, carnal nature dictates. Some Satanists extend this symbol to encompass the evolutionary “force” of entropy that permeates all of nature and provides the drive for survival and propagation inherent in all living things. To the Satanist, Satan is not a conscious entity to be worshiped, rather it is a name for the reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped at will. (Gilmore 2007: 31) Rituals, called Greater Magic, are “intellectual decompression chambers” used to invoke “change in situations or events in accordance with one’s will” (LaVey 1969: 110). Many rituals can thus be characterized as “psychodramas,” where heightened emotion is used to alter reality (LaVey 1969: 109–128; LaVey 1972; cf. Petersen 2012). Both Greater Magic and manipulation, called Lesser Magic, are used as each individual Satanist sees fit, as they are conceived of as pragmatic techniques that work, not spiritual dogma.19 The source material itself can be categorized in “official” documents and interpretations. The official documents include The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, and The Satanic Witch (LaVey 1969, 1972, [1971] 1989), as well as the documents mentioned above, all written by Anton Szandor LaVey. It is important to bear in mind that these sources are manifestations of satanic philosophy,



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not scripture, even though the CoS sometimes treats them as such (Lewis 2002; Gallagher 2013).20 They are not transcendental truths, but statements of the satanic worldview and the satanic ethos. Semi-official documents include the anthologies The Devil’s Notebook and Satan Speaks! by Anton LaVey (1992, 1998) and Blanche Barton’s The Church of Satan and The Secret Life of a Satanist (1990, 1992). Interpretations of the party line could be classified as orthodox or unorthodox. Clearly orthodox documents include most of the material found on the official website and the websites of active members, articles in The Cloven Hoof and The Black Flame, and books by vocal high-ranking members such as Matt Paradise (2007) and James D. Sass (2007).21 Unorthodox interpretations, such as non-sanctioned comments by individuals pretending to be spokespersons of the church, or material by apostates, are regularly removed from the CoS’s sphere of influence, but after the advent of the Internet they have proven to be increasingly difficult to suppress. Thus, many orthodox documents deal with these unorthodox sources.22 Academic interest in the CoS goes back to the early 1970s, when this new group of “black urban witches” caught the eye of anthropologists and sociologists. Both Edward Moody (1971, 1974) and Marcello Truzzi (1972, 1974a, 1974b) had first-hand acquaintance with LaVey and the first years of the church, in Moody’s case through extensive participant observation. Both researchers couple the emergence of Satanism with the witchcraft revival and the occult explosion of the late 1960s, significantly coloring their analytic perspective; while Moody sees magic as a pragmatic solution to problems of selfesteem and anxiety, using social psychology to unfold how Satanists are reconditioned through inversion of Christian dogma and practice, Truzzi sees black and white witchcraft as both a continuation and break with previous incarnations. Both, however, stress how symbolic inversion is a means to an end, namely the liberation and empowerment of the individual, not the central aspect of Satanism (Moody 1974: 366; Truzzi 1974a: 644–645).23 Although neither the therapeutic carnival of Moody nor the witchcraft aspect of Truzzi is as strong today as it was at the outset, both studies provide valuable insights into the first phase of modern Satanism. Randall Alfred (1976) builds his analysis on protracted participant observation in the early phases of the CoS, but the theoretical angle is Weberian, analyzing the complex motivations underlying the church, its founder, and its members. He argues that the ambivalence of the founder toward play and seriousness, authority and rebellion, is reflected in the church itself (Alfred 1976: 197). The CoS might best be described as evolving toward the position of Protestant sect,24 as the conflict between the individualistic philosophy of

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“hedonism” and the discipline and authority needed to perform magic—and indeed be a Church of Satan—is resolved “eventually in favor of the longdominant traditional value systems of post-Reformation Western culture” (199). On a sociological level the CoS is thus deeply embedded in the Christian culture of which it is a part, even though it cannot be said to be “an inversionary sect, a topsy-turvy Christianity” (189). Alfred is the first to note that the CoS (and indeed most modern Satanists) repeatedly reorients itself along a scale of respectability and outrage, thus continually emphasizing the nonconformist attitude that is at odds with Western society while basically affirming a secular, scientific, and even capitalist ethos of rationality (Petersen 2009c, 2011a, b, 2013a). This line of reasoning is picked up and expanded in the influential work of James R. Lewis (2002). Continuing the Weberian perspective, he is particularly interested in the complex relations between LaVey’s charismatic authority, his rational legitimation strategies, and some followers’ appeal to traditional modes of legitimation. For example, many Satanists consider The Satanic Bible authoritative in matters of satanic philosophy and practice, while simultaneously adhering to LaVey’s explicit appeal to independent, rational thought. Although it can be found throughout the satanic milieu, this strategy is especially successful within the CoS, both in order to ensure the doctrinal rigidity mentioned above and to manifest the “real” Satanism of the church when confronted with heterodox interpretations from non-CoS Satanists. In the same vein, science and esotericism, or respectability and outrage, is invoked as needed. In effect, the “routinization of charisma” has created a tradition, “orthodox LaVeyans” and “unorthodox pseudo-Satanists.” Recent studies continue in this direction and have focused on neglected dimensions of LaVey’s work and the modern CoS, such as his ambivalent appropriation of conspiracy theory (Dyrendal 2012), his use of esotericism (Faxneld 2013a; Petersen 2012) and psychology (Lap 2013), and the complications of gender (Holt, 2013; Faxneld and Petersen, forthcoming), as well as fleshing out the complicated relations between organizational discourse and everyday practice, including online and offline dynamics (Petersen 2013b).

Michael Aquino and the Temple of Set As with the CoS, the history of the ToS is intimately bound up with the biography of its founder, Michael Aquino. He joined the CoS in 1969 and rose rapidly in the church’s hierarchy. After falling out with Anton LaVey over matters of structure and direction of the church, he led a group of dissenters to form an initiatory esoteric organization in 1975. He was affirmed in this



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decision through a Working of Greater Black Magic where he communicated with the Prince of Darkness in his original form of the Egyptian god Set, who charged Aquino to found a temple and become its High Priest (Petersen 2009c).25 The ToS is led by High Priestess Patty A. Hardy and is a closely knit organization of individual ranks, pylons (local groups), and orders (divisions of interest) topped by The Council of Nine, the Executive Director, and the High Priestess. Membership is by application and contact with a priest/priestess, followed by an evaluation period; the focus is on the individual Setian’s (first degree member’s) development and creativity on the road to becoming a second-degree Adept. As with the CoS, the higher ranks are reserved for administrative offices only and are bestowed upon competent individuals.26 Unlike the CoS, each member must be affiliated with a Pylon and, eventually, an Order, even though the practical interaction with the ToS resembles that of the CoS, as the self-realization of the individual is more important than the temple as such. All in all, the ToS resembles an individualistic rendition of the magical orders of nineteenth-century Europe, like masonic lodges, the Ordo Templi Orientis, or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Membership figures are difficult to come by due to temple policy; older estimates are in the hundreds, with about fifty in Britain (La Fontaine 1999: 104–105). Zeena Schreck, daughter of Anton LaVey, joined the temple in 1995, but led a schism in 2002 to form The Storm; it is likely that this affected the ToS in terms of membership, at least in the short term. On the other hand, the temple has never been keen on massive growth due to its nature as initiatory school. Philosophically, the ToS is an intellectual wing of esoteric Satanism and leans heavily on elements of Western Esotericism in general (such as ceremonial magic(k), mysticism, and the Left-Hand Path; see Dyrendal 2012; Granholm 2013a). Compared to the CoS, a greater focus is laid on magical Workings and studies aiding the process of “becoming” (Xeper or “kheffer”), that is, realizing the true nature of the individual Satanist. In Black Magic, Aquino lays out the basic tenets. Setians are walking the Left-Hand Path which “involves the conscious attempt to preserve and strengthen one’s isolate, psychecentric existence against the OU [objective universe] while creating, apprehending, comprehending, and influencing a varying number of SUs [subjective universes]” (Aquino [1975] 2010: 31). Central here is the uniqueness of the individual, the importance of emancipatory knowledge, and the practice of Greater Black Magic to strengthen individual existence and influence subjective universes (which in turn affects the objective universe).27 The transcendence of the individual psyche is also proposed—in effect, the ToS believes in the immortality

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of a true self that is, and Xeper is the ability to align your consciousness with that authentic self (Aquino [1975] 2010: 58–73). That is achieved through knowledge understood as a conjunction of intellect and intuition, akin to gnosis and described as self-deification (28–34). These doctrines are summed up in the figure of Set/Satan and the Black Flame. Set, as the true semblance of the Prince of Darkness, is real—ToS is theistic. But he is neither related to the Judeo-Christian context nor worshiped as a god. He is what every adept aspires to become—fully self-conscious, knowledgeable, and true to his inner essence, totally apart. Presumably he is “becoming” as well, but that is unclear. His gift to humanity is that which sets us apart from nature: The questioning intellect identified as the Black Flame of Set “which brought isolate self-consciousness to higher life” (Aquino [1975] 2010: 120; it is also described as the Gift of Intellect, Gift of Set, and Gift of Knowledge). This evolutionary leap was thus brought to us by Set and obliges us to “become.” As noted above, magic—both Greater and Lesser—is used to aid the magician’s “becoming” by staging alterations in consciousness and the world. It is thus a very personal endeavor, deeply rooted in the individual worldviews of the temple’s adherents.28 The source material is sparse, as the Temple restricts access to documents of central importance and does not permit participation in rituals by non-­ Initiates. It is not that it regards temple literature as esoteric secrets as such, but the truth is dangerous to the wrong minds: “There are no penalties for revealing ‘esoteric secrets’ in the Temple. We exist to promote knowledge of truth, not to conceal it. Setians should understand, however, that some of the truths known to the Priesthood of Set can be dangerous to oneself or others if misapplied, just as a loaded gun in the hands of a child is dangerous” (Aquino [1975] 2010: 30). Official documents include the “channeled” The Book of Coming Forth by Night, comparable to Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law and imparted with similar legitimacy (Aquino [1975] 1985). In it the intelligence of Set speaks directly. The entire series Jeweled Tablets of Set, of which only the introduction to the first part (the Crystal Tablet of Set) called Black Magic is publicly available (Aquino [1975] 2010), is an encyclopedia of knowledge comprising Tablets keyed to specific degrees in the temple hierarchy. Another previous high priest, Don Webb, has published several “how-to” manuals directly related to ToS philosophy and practice (Webb 1999, 2004). Finally I should mention the huge e-books The Church of Satan (Aquino 2013) and The Temple of Set (Aquino 2010), both of which are the personal, yet meticulously documented, analysis of the emergence of the church and temple from the 1960s onward by the founder.



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Academic interest in the temple is meager. The first extended treatment of which I am familiar is Gini Graham Scott’s The Magicians (Scott [1983] 2007). Through ethnographic methods she tracked the early temple (under the name the Church of Hu) to understand the appeal of magic to modern life. Although the book is criticized by Setians and scholars alike (see, e.g., Granholm 2013a: 216–217), it gives a clue to life in the temple at one, particularly tumultuous point in time. That said, the esoteric Satanism of the temple is constructed within a “problems discourse” that is primarily normative and not analytical. In recent years, Kennet Granholm and Asbjørn Dyrendal have given the ToS a more balanced examination, although updated ethnographical perspectives are sorely lacking given the dependence on written material (Dyrendal 2009, 2012; Granholm 2009, 2013a).

The Internet Boom of the 1990s and Beyond: Satanic Reds The basis for the present study is that modern religious Satanism exists as various voices in a fragmented satanic milieu. In fact, it has always been the case; the major quantitative change is the increased visibility and accessibility of Satanism (and esoteric and occult material in general) on the Internet, a medium which is valuable in terms of information exchange and r­ etrieval as well as general communication and contact, but detrimental to authority and inter-group community building. Sociologically speaking, as Satanism is set free from the closed circles that have maintained doctrinal integrity, individualism and eclecticism are amplified. This is not all new, as satanic literature such as The Satanic Bible has had an independent life outside the CoS for decades (Lewis 2002); what is new is that Satanists who previously worked alone can now participate openly, freely, even anonymously in the development and articulation of Modern Satanism by maintaining a homepage or blog, engaging in debate on message boards, twittering important links and events, or even commenting on pages with a satanic content on Facebook and other social media sites. The paradox is that this increase in personal expression ultimately increases fragmentation rather than global community, as the undermining of doctrinal homogeneity and organizational hierarchy is met with demarcation strategies to separate “us” from “them,” which causes new, local groups to develop, using the Internet to establish a network which might affect off-line power relations.29 The larger organizations have a presence on the Web, but they cannot (and often will not) control the information present online. That does not mean that they do not care. Assertions of “real” Satanism and allegations of

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“pseudo”-Satanism signal borders in virtual space. To investigate the electronic abyss outside the safe harbors of CoS and ToS, I have selected one illustrative example of Satanism in the Internet age: a loose affiliation called Satanic Reds (SR). This group was founded in 1997 as an outlet for the prolific writer Tani Jantsang and associates such as Philip Marsh. Jantsang describes herself as a “generational Satanist,” born into the “Dark Doctrines” that are put forward on the website and in various articles.30 She worked with the CoS and other satanic organizations in the 1980s and 1990s, even gaining honorary degrees, but mounting disagreement after Anton LaVey’s death resulted in disassociation from the CoS in 2000. As such, her philosophical standpoints and practices precede her relationship with the CoS through groups such as the Starry Wisdom Sect and the Kishites in the 1960s and 1970s (Jantsang and Marsh, n.d.), and all association with other groups (mainly from 1989 on) seems to revolve around publicizing the doctrines. The website itself is organized as a huge archive of articles, spells, rituals, links, and an IRC chat, and is operated by the People’s Commissar (Jantsang). People join by filling out a registration form. Apparently anyone can join, and members are free to join other groups as well—it is an association of Satanists on the Left-Hand Path with radical sympathies.31 The membership count is unknown, but given the low cost of affiliation, Jantsang’s estimate of 800 members might not be excessive.32 Active members amount to a whole lot less, and the website seems to have gone into hiatus in recent years. In any case, numbers and activity are less important than the fact that the online articles and printed essays have been read and republished from 1989 onward in many formats, reaching Satanists interested in something deeper than The Satanic Bible. On the basis of the material, it is clear that SR should be classified as highly esoteric Satanism, as it advocates a radically syncretistic and eclectic version of various Left-Hand Path religious traditions combined with modern-day political philosophy. The articles describe the unified “dark tradition,” the Dark Doctrines, found around the globe in many cultures, including those of Christianity and Islam. The main influences seem to be Hinduism, especially Advaita Vedanta and Tantric traditions; Buddhism, again mainly the Abhidharma school and Tantra; Daoism; and various mystical traditions, including Jewish Kabbalah. The main principles are the Boundless Darkness and the Flame, and the emanation doctrine of Being and Becoming. Combined they describe a mystical cosmogenesis which re-evaluates the figure of Satan and integrates it in a monistic emanation complex. It is a doctrine of Darkness and



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Light-in-Darkness, stages of being and becoming, and a Dark Flame infused in our universe of matter and energy. Satan is thus both a concept describing the ceaseless dynamics of the universe and a reality, a dark force suffused through the entire emanated universe. In reality, all is one with the Dark Presence or Boundless Darkness (that is “none”): 1. Satan is the “dark force” that permeates all of nature and motivates all things to act according to their inner nature. The Boundless Darkness Itself is SAT. The ACTION of emanating out of, unfolding out of, springing forth, is TAN. The motivator and the act of motivating all things are together: Satan. Satan is that which is the origin of all and the unmoved mover, and it is described by both the unfolding and the thing unfolded: Satan. (SR, Nine: number 1) The Satanist resonates with this gnosis, a knowledge that is also an intuitive practice, and strives to become what is already his or her inner core through a participation in the unending change of the physical universe: “And all this is the esoteric meaning of ‘Do as Thou Wilt’ for that truly is the whole of the Law, Cosmic Law and SAT-TAN-ic Law. . . . Man is just another animal: Self-inner-truth-Wisdom is knowing what kind of animal a human is.” (SR, Nine: number 9) These doctrines form the backbone of an understanding of the Left-Hand Path, which combines the mystical and practical, the esoteric and dialectical materialist. Again, the point is unity. In practice a Satanic Red is doing pretty much what other Satanists are doing: “What They Will.” Their rituals are as eclectic as their doctrines, often adopting the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft (the Cthulhu mythos) and other appropriate material to heighten the effect. In this regard they resemble modern Wicca movements and the postmodern Chaos Magick, and even the pragmatic appropriations of the CoS and ToS (which incidentally included Lovecraft as well, see LaVey 1972).33 On the issue of distinctness, Satanic Reds argues: Satanic Reds exists as an alternative to the “Satanism” that is so tied up with Christianity. It is, in fact, a Left Hand Path organization as far as occult doctrines go. The doctrines are wholly outside of the Christian world view. The concepts of becoming (xeper) and Inner Will (thelema) are in these Doctrines, and always were from ancient times. But the wailing angst of people rebelling against their own Christian backgrounds is wholly left out. (SR, FAQ. “Why do we call ourselves Satanic Reds?”)

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This is “true” Satanism, ancient and wholly outside the Christian framework. It is working with the perennial wisdom within esoteric traditions of East and West (note the discreet nods to Egyptian religion and the ToS in the use of “xeper” and to Aleister Crowley with “thelema”) rather than the “wailing angst” of the more secular, rational Satanism of the CoS. Even Satan, as noted before, is SaTan, Sat and Tan, and not a Hebrew fiend. Satanic Reds is of course only one example of modern Satanism online; honorable mentions for further study include the 600 club, a community site launched around 1996–1997 by Rick Rinker, which is still active and quite populated (http://www.the600club.com). The goal seems to be mainly communicative, and the site utilizes the structural aspects of the Internet, namely visibility, accessibility, and interaction to reach newcomers and dabblers on the fringe of the satanic milieu as well as old-time contacts to improve dialogue and virtual community with varying rates of success. Another example is the various modern offshoots of the British Order of the Nine Angles such as the Temple ov Blood, the Temple of THEM, and the White Star Acception (Senholt 2013; Sieg 2013). This radical current has gained traction in the online environment with a large number of weblogs, websites, and online articles presenting the “Sinister Current,” a recognizable new interpretation of Satanism and the Left-Hand Path. Again, the Internet has worked as an explicit recruitment tool in a larger strategy to reach suitable individuals responsive to the heady blend of right-wing radicalism, crime, and occultism proposed by the network (Sieg 2013). On the other hand, increased exposure has dampened some of the more extreme elements in the ideology, although it is unclear whether this is a double move or a serious change in direction. In addition, the underground nature of these groups highlights issues of membership and authenticity relevant to both Internet and Satanism studies, as it is impossible to ascertain the numbers involved and the truthfulness of the claims.

The Satanic Worldview As mentioned earlier, a systematic attempt to delineate beliefs and practices is difficult due to the disparities between different groups. The evolution of modern Satanism has been unplanned as a whole, and the groups often ­develop as offshoots from earlier, now “obsolete” or “wrong” attempts to demarcate Satanism, frequently both starting anew and drawing upon older ­material at the same time (e.g., Faxneld 2013a; Petersen 2011b). I previously described two broad lines of thought: Rationalist (materialist and/or atheistic) Satanism, now visible in the writings of Anton LaVey and the



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CoS, which usually underscores Satanism as a lifestyle and philosophy, and esoteric (idealistic and/or theistic) Satanism found in the Temple of Set and the Satanic Reds, which are less antithetical to religious rhetoric of a mystical bend. Many variations and hybrids exist, focusing on either the philosophical or the religious side of these lines. One might find a mystic in the CoS, or a more atheistically inclined Setian in the ToS—these are general outlines, not rigid dogma. Nevertheless, both the human-oriented and Satan-oriented Satanists are opposed to the traditional Devil-worshiper, the Christian variety of imaginary Satanist, and the reactive Satanist frequently encountered among black metal enthusiasts, young adolescents, and some mentally disturbed criminals. Consequently, a certain amount of consensus is found in the satanic milieu at large pertaining to a core tradition, a few generally accepted rules, a shared iconography, and opposition to the ordinary worldview of the Western world.

Iconography and Aesthetics Let me start with the iconography. The “material” pentagram (five-pointed star), often customized with a goat’s head, lightning bolt, sickle, colors, or letters, is in widespread use among the Satanic groups.34 The history of this sign and modern usage does not necessarily correspond, but the communitybuilding aspect, as well as the indication of special significance of the wearer to the larger society, is clear. Thus, the pentagram or Baphomet-sigil, as it is commonly called when inscribed with a goat’s head and Hebrew letters spelling “Leviathan,” demonstrates the philosophical and religious stance to insiders as well as outsiders, and the personal views of the individual Satanist. It is a powerful symbol that stirs feelings of dread, uneasiness, or contempt in the average American or European because of the association with black magic, Satanism, and other occult practices. There is some truth to this, as it is a design with an impressive lineage, associated with Pythagoras and Renaissance Hermeticism and found in German grimoires, Eliphas Levi’s The History of Magic and The Key to the Mysteries, and Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible.35 That said, feelings of dread might also come from the symbols’ use in Hammer Horror movies and occult thrillers, as it is widespread in popular culture. Today most Wiccans utilize the “spiritual” pentagram, while Satanists use the “material” pentagram to denote carnality and this-worldly materialism. Most satanic groups have detailed interpretations, while many solitary Satanists just use it as the time-worn emblem for the Adversary, black magic, or the physical aspect (that is, earth, pleasure, carnality). Combined with a goat’s

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head (in itself a symbol of earth), a torch (reason), or lightning bolts (the Black Flame), it is a potent symbol of modern Satanism. Regarding the penchant for black clothes and a “gothic” style, there are enormous differences between Satanists within and across groups, although a purely impressionistic survey in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom confirmed an affinity for the unique and striking, often black, in young and old. This might be coincidence, or it might be put in context through the theory forwarded in The Satanic Bible: Learning to effectively utilize the command to LOOK, is an integral part of a witch’s or warlock’s training. To manipulate a person, you must first be able to attract and hold his attention. The three methods by which the command to look can be accomplished are the utilization of sex, sentiment, or wonder, or any combination of these. . . . Visual imagery utilized for emotional reaction is certainly the most important device incorporated in the practice of lesser magic. Anyone who is foolish enough to say “looks don’t mean a thing” is indeed deluded. Good looks are unnecessary, but “looks” certainly are needed!” (LaVey 1969: 111–113) Bear in mind that The Satanic Bible was followed by The Compleat Witch (now The Satanic Witch), a handbook in lesser magic or manipulative techniques where Erving Goffman meets William Mortensen. This might explain the black garments and sinister appearance, at least in the rationalist crowd. It might also explain the somewhat popular shaven head and goatee, a look popularized by LaVey himself. Then again, even the “Alien elite” needs a common ground, and similar clothes and aesthetic choices, often of a marginal nature, work toward community-building within a group of ultimate individualists (cf. Dyrendal 2008).

Tradition, Rules, and Worldview The common ideological and philosophical core can be summed up by the rough definition I proposed in the introduction: Satanism is a combination of positive religious and philosophical aspirations centered on the individual and antinomian convictions used to decondition cultural normativity and hegemony, all of which is expressed in a certain, satanic way. If taken as a whole, satanic discourse is a coherent statement of eclecticism around the multivocal symbol of Satan, with a core of individualism and self-realization and an amorphous periphery of construction and usage of tradition. As such, modern



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religious Satanism taps into the cultic milieu, which reinforces the similarities with other alternative or “countercultural” currents in late modern societies (Petersen 2009c). It is also a solid statement of secularization; as Peter Berger notes: [I]nasmuch as secularization is a global trend, there is a global tendency for religious contents to be modified in a secularizing direction. In the extreme cases . . . this may lead to the deliberate excision of all or nearly all ‘supernatural’ elements from the religious tradition, and a legitimation of the continued existence of the institution that once embodied the tradition in purely secular terms. In other cases it may just mean that the ‘supernatural’ elements are de-emphasized or pushed into the background, while the institution is ‘sold’ under the label of values congenial to secularized consciousness. (Berger 1967: 146) As I discussed at length in the section on the satanic above, the satanic discourse of modern religious Satanism found in the satanic milieu, including the specific articulations expressed by the three groups I have been discussing, is both a consequence of and a reaction to this secularizing trend. Anton LaVey used a number of acknowledged and unacknowledged sources for his work: traditional folklore, the romantic idea of the Promethean Satan, Western esotericism (like Enochian lore and ceremonial magic), and modern philosophies (e.g., Ayn Rand, Ragnar Redbeard, Charles Darwin, and Friedrich Nietzsche) (Faxneld 2013a; Petersen 2011b). This body of “tradition” is augmented by other groups in a continuous process of addition and subtraction: Eastern traditions of Tantric Hinduism and the Buddhism of Nagarjuna, Egyptian myths and imagery, modern sociology, biology, and physics, all of which are enmeshed in organizational strategies of legitimation and individual appropriations of material. As illustrated in the discussion of the CoS above, many Satanists have an ambivalent relationship with The Satanic Bible. On the one hand, it is a primer, the “wake-up call” for beginners, but, on the other, it represents the doctrinal rigidity of a church. However, it is clear that Anton LaVey laid the ground rules for a satanic organization, and that the simple statements are taken as good guidelines by the majority of CoS and non-CoS Satanists alike. Even though the CoS was founded during the psychedelic revolution and in the hippie capital of the world, LaVey deplored the use of drugs and was generally a man of law and order (Alfred 1976: 186–187). These are still generally accepted as pragmatic rules of survival in a world that has major issues with Satanists—controlled outrage is good, but there is no need to provoke

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needlessly (Lewis 2001a; Petersen 2011a, 2013a). Members of public organizations and networks uphold the laws of the country and do not engage in illegal acts; if they do, they are thrown out. In addition, members exercise control and are aware of the image they are projecting. This is a doctrine of selfpreservation: Moral relativism aside, no Satanist should openly advocate aberrations such as Nazism or the abuse of children in public, as this image has a detrimental effect on all Satanists. In addition, both classical Devil worship and destructive reactive behavior (such as church burnings and graveyard desecration) is frowned upon as a Christian-dependent behavior unsuited for a true individualist. Modern religious Satanism adapts to the society of which it is a part; therefore, the specific manifestation of opposition to authority structures varies from country to country (see Søderlind and Dyrendal 2009 for an amusing discussion). All Satanists have a problem with Western secular Christianity and fundamentalists, but the reactions take different shapes according to time, place, and circumstance. Whether Satanism is clothed in the garbs of elitism, immanent gnosis, ritual magic, or rational science, it has two horns: an anti-repressive ideology attacking all perceived hypocrisy and a humanoriented religion of self-realization. Most of all, this two-horned beast is a product of and answer to modernity, to secularization, detraditionalization, fragmentation, reflexivity, and individualization.

Suggestions for Further Research In the last decade, the academic study of Satanism has undergone a significant increase in membership and sophistication. Beginning with James R. Lewis’s seminal demographic study “Who Serves Satan?” (Lewis 2001a), the field has witnessed a development similar to the neighboring fields of paganism and esotericism studies on a smaller scale, thus strengthening both the scholarly debate between Satanism studies and other disciplines and the academic status for the field as a whole (Petersen 2013c). The sheer number of dedicated publications including journal articles, chapters in anthologies, and conference papers being published from 2001 to the present is astounding, especially when considering that “Satanism studies” is the province of around two dozen scholars worldwide. The most notable landmarks include the two Satanism conferences in Trondheim, Norway, in 2009 and Stockholm, Sweden, in 2011 (with another being planned for Denmark in 2014); the anthologies Contemporary Religious Satanism and The Devil’s Party (Petersen 2009a; Faxneld and Petersen 2013), with more books in the planning stage; and of course the many doctoral



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dissertations submitted on historical and contemporary issues in modern Satanism (e.g., Dagmar Fügmann, Jesper Aa. Petersen, Ruben van Luijk, and Per Faxneld have or will soon finish their research, and Cimminnee Holt has just begun). Also of note is the more theoretical debate between proponents of different conceptualizations of Satanism (e.g., Petersen 2011c; Granholm 2009, 2013a) and the wide variety of research methodology being used (e.g., quantitative studies by J. R. Lewis, ethnography by Per Faxneld and Cimminnee Holt, historiography by Ruben van Luijk, discourse analysis by Jesper Aa. Petersen and Kennet Granholm), further proving the gradual maturation of the field. So what is needed to continue this development? First of all studies of individual Satanists and groups based on ethnography, such as extended online fieldwork, interviews, and participant observation. Edward Moody and Randall Alfred conducted (covert) participant observation in the CoS in the late 1960s (Moody 1974; Alfred 1976), but since then the majority of studies have focused on textual material (exceptions include Faxneld, 2013c; Fügmann 2009; Lewis 2010, 2013; Möller 2007; and Cimminnee Holts doctoral work). “Thick description” is a feasible way to empirically substantiate the field and further understand identity construction within the satanic milieu. Geography also plays a role: the United States and United Kingdom are well represented, with the Scandinavian countries, Germany, France, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Italy covered as well (see Fügmann 2009; Hjelm 2009; Petersen 2009a for examples). But that leaves entire continents, with different cultural presuppositions, as well as neighboring countries with different ­developments, still waiting for scholarly attention. Online fieldwork is another way of securing new data; the Internet is a goldmine of groups and material that needs systematization and analysis (see Petersen 2013b for an example). Here, message boards, Facebook pages, Wikipedia entries, and websites constitute an interesting cluster of empirical material which is both fixed in text and image and reflecting dynamic group processes. In both cases, a combination of traditional ethnography and “netnography” on nascent groups is a good way of improving our knowledge of the sheer breadth of satanic worldviews within the milieu, including crossover into other, related milieus (see, e.g., Gregorius 2013; Senholt 2013; Sieg 2013). Related to that, we also need broader sociological, historical, and comparative monographs on the satanic milieu, currents within it, or established groups and key texts, as almost no cases except the CoS have been examined thoroughly. Whether focusing on gender, ritual practices, legitimation strategies, constructions of tradition, the heterogeneity of identity, or the production

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of texts and practices, it is very useful to update theme- and case-based knowledge in relation to the identity work of individual Satanists to understand the conflicts inherent in a subculture based on individuality and the performance of “Otherness.” Per Faxneld’s study of satanic feminism, Cimminnee Holt’s analysis of embodiment, and Asbjørn Dyrendal’s examination of conspiracy theory all uncover previously hidden dimensions and are good starting points for further work (Dyrendal 2013; Faxneld 2013c; Holt 2013). Relevant here are also in-depth analyses of unstudied documents like Michael Aquino’s The Book of Coming Forth by Night (1975), Matt Paradise’s Bearing the Devil’s Mark (2007), or N.A-A 218’s Liber Falxifer (2008) to supplement LaVey-centric scholarship based on The Satanic Bible and related books (see, e.g., Faxneld 2013a; Holt 2013; Lap 2013; Gallagher 2013; Petersen 2009c, 2011b, 2012). Again, we should also engage with material on the periphery of Satanism proper. For example, Fredrik Gregorius’s (2013) study of Luciferian Witchcraft reads a range of books unknown to most scholars, further ­deepening our understanding of satanic appropriation. Finally, almost nothing has been done on Satanism and wider culture. Satanic aesthetics—taken in both senses, as style and as theory—is an important neglected topic, as style and creativity seem to be core issues within the satanic milieu. This is particularly interesting because of the magical thrust inherited from Crowley through LaVey and Aquino, which precisely puts artistic and aesthetic pursuits center stage in ritual work (Dyrendal 2012; Petersen 2012). Studies of satanic production, distribution and consumption of popular culture, the arts, and music, to name a few, could give us important clues to the relative particularity and commonality of satanic “culture” (e.g., Dyrendal 2008; Granholm 2013b; Mørk 2009; Olson 2013; Petersen 2013a). The same goes for satanic politics, if such a thing actually exists. Contrary to expectation, Satanists do seem to be politically and ideologically diverse (Lewis 2001a, with follow-up 2013; Søderlind and Dyrendal 2009). New research is needed to examine the easy conflation of Satanism and black metal, Satanism and fascism, and Satanism and transgression, all of which are used by critics to condemn, and insiders to play with gray areas (Petersen 2011a, 2013a).

Notes 1. See http://twicsy.com/i/zeXKM for the heart-shaped tattoo and http://twicsy. com/i/wNDpqd for the sigil and quote. 2. Just to be clear from the outset: O.T.O. is not a “sex cult” either. As with many other magical groups, sexuality does play a part in the symbolic teachings of the order. But what is implied by “sex cult” is something else: uninhibited orgies,



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sacred prostitution, sadomasochism, and obscenity. People looking for a sex cult would be sorely disappointed with the gender-equal fraternity they find. 3. Neither “subculture,” “community,” nor “movement” are satisfying or analytically clear as descriptive terms. As I have argued extensively elsewhere, I find the concept of “satanic milieu” most useful to characterize a fragmented network of shared outlook and aesthetics with little organization, ideology, or practice in common (Petersen 2009b: 4–6, 2009c, 2011c: 74–95, 2013b; see also Lewis 2002: n. 2). The concept is based on Colin Campbell’s “cultic milieu” and Christopher Partridge’s “occulture” (Campbell 1972; Partridge 2004: ch. 4). 4. This angle is inspired by seminal research by Wouter Hanegraaff, Olav Hammer, and Christopher Partridge on the New Age Movement and other contemporary esoteric currents in Western Europe, all of which exhibit a tendency to combine the old and new, the “secular” and the “sacred,” the “rational” and the “spiritual” to satisfy (late) modern sensibilities through alternative rationalities. See, e.g., Asprem 2012 and Petersen 2011b for thorough discussions of this background. 5. This is shorthand for my complicated academic definition of religious Satanism: It is a project and a language (Petersen 2011c: 62–67; cf. Petersen 2009b: 1–4). The general project consists of a self-religious orientation toward personal realization and authentic nature, whether framed as a carnal or esoteric truth, and an antinomian deconditioning from external authorities. A second couplet of traits, self-designation and subcultural ancestry, describes the specific language through which Satanism is articulated as an antinomian self-religion. Here, the individual or collective self-designation as “Satanist,” including the use of Satan and a host of related mythological beings, is a way of declaring and practicing a specific stance on adversarial self-religion by framing it as satanic. The final trait of subcultural ancestry dictates a calling on established satanic groups and movement texts or actively tapping into a common pool of literature, practices, social circles, aesthetics, and so on. For more on definitions of Satanism, including Satanism as self-religion, see Dyrendal 2009; Granholm 2009; Harvey 1995, 2009; Lap 2013; Petersen 2009b, 2011c. 6. Solid studies of historical Satanism as a Christian discourse include Frankfurter 2006; Introvigne 2010; La Fontaine 1999; Medway 2001; and Murchembled 2003. Jeffrey B. Russell’s impressive study of the Devil in history is marred by a Christian bias, a strange theory of history, and an unsightly arrogance toward modern religion (see Russell, 1977, 1981, 1984, 1986, 1989; brief synopsis in Russell 1991). 7. In Islands of History, Marshall Sahlins convincingly argues that “[e]vents . . . cannot be understood apart from the values attributed to them” (1985: 154). Historical narrative is thus infused with mythical meaning, making history a metaphor for the reality of the myth, whether it is Hawaiian, Christian, or ­Satanist.

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8. On this process of appropriation and sanitization, see, e.g., Faxneld 2013a; van Luijk 2013; Petersen 2009b: 10–16, 2011c: 78–85. 9. On the Left-Hand Path as a broad current within Western esotericism relevant for understanding contemporary Satanism, see, e.g., Drury 2011; Evans 2007; Flowers 1997; Granholm 2005, 2009, 2013a; Petersen 2012; Schreck and Schreck 2002; Senholt 2013; Sieg 2013; Sutcliffe 1995; and Urban 2006. 10. I usually work with a third category of reactive Satanism to include the individuals and groups “living out” the mythical frame in a more or less reflected “ostension” of popular narratives (see, e.g., Fine and Victor 1994; Lowney 1995; Moynihan and Søderlind 1998; Schmidt 1992). While reactive Satanism can be very sincere and is deeply meaningful for the persons involved, it reflects common concerns and anxieties of adolescents and outsiders, not religious Satanism per se. By “playing evil,” a symbolic resistance can be voiced against dominant society, and problems can be negotiated. This is inverted Christianity as rebellion rather than a new, coherent belief system with philosophical, mythical, and practical aspects. Consequently, it is necessary to distinguish between reactive Satanism and variants of modern, religious Satanism proper, even though an interest in adolescent Satanism could eventually lead to a serious involvement with the established groups outlined here (see Lewis 2001a; ­Petersen 2011a, 2013a). 11. Overviews of the history of modern Satanism include Introvigne 2010 and Schmidt 1992. Useful non-scholarly histories, more or less partisan to specific views, include Aquino 2013; Baddeley 2000; Barton 1990; Flowers 1997; and Lyons 1988. Chris Mathews’s “anatomy” (2009) is highly negative toward religious Satanism as a whole, making it almost worthless as an introduction. 12. See, e.g., Baddeley 2000: 100 ff., 148 ff.; and Lewis 2001b: 285 ff. for a summary of names and short descriptions; very few have been the subject of a detailed study. 13. For examples of apocalypse culture, see Parfrey [ 1987] 1990 and Petros 2007. CoS members involved included Boyd Rice, Nikolas Schreck, and Zeena LaVey. 14. See standard reference works like Ellis 2000; Richardson, Best, and Bromley 1991; and Victor 1993. Many relevant articles on the moral panic are collected in Lewis and Petersen 2008. 15. On Satanism and the Internet, see Petersen 2013b; Smoczynski 2009, 2013. 16. Relevant studies of the CoS and LaVey include Alfred 1976; Dyrendal 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013; Gallagher 2013; Faxneld 2013a; Harvey 1995, 2009; Henricks 1977; Holt 2013; La Fontaine 1999; Lap 2013; Lewis 2002; Moody 1971, 1974; Petersen 2009c, 2011b, 2012; Truzzi 1972, 1974a, 1974b. Important sources include Baddeley 2000; Barton 1990, 1992; Fritscher [1973] 2004; Gausten 2009; Gilmore 2007; LaVey 1969, 1972, [1971] 1989, 1992, 1998; Paradise 2007; Sass 2007; Shankbone 2007, as well as critical accounts like Aquino 2013;



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Mathews 2009; Wolfe 2008; and Wright 1991. See also the magazines The Cloven Hoof (official bulletin of the CoS), The Black Flame (international forum of the CoS), and Old Nick (a satanic gentleman’s magazine), the huge amounts of material found on the official website, http://www.churchofsatan.com, the affiliated message boards Letters to the Devil and the Undercroft (both found on http://www.satannet.com), and documentaries like Satanis: The Devil’s Mass (Ray Laurent, 1970), Speak of the Devil (Bougas and Parfrey, 1995), and Inside the Church of Satan (Warren, 2008). 17. Marcello Truzzi and Randall Alfred accept the CoS claim of 7,000 registered members in the mid-1970s (see Truzzi 1972: 27 and Alfred 1976: 193). Of course, only a fraction of that constitute active members, as Alfred notes. In addition, the CoS has undergone serious changes since then. Recently, Gilmore intimated a membership “in the thousands,” presumably worldwide (Burke 2013). 18. Two related aspects are important here: The “LaVey Myth” and the purity of the doctrine. For a discussion of the first, see, e.g., Lewis 2002; Petersen 2009c; and Wright 1991. Doctrinal authority is discussed in Dyrendal 2008; Lewis 2002; and Petersen 2009c, 2011b, as well as below. 19. All can be found of the church website and in Gilmore 2007: 25–40. 20. On the genesis of and sources for The Satanic Bible and other books, see also Faxneld 2013a; Holt 2013; Lap 2013. 21. James D. Sass has since left the group. 22. See, e.g., the “Satanic Bunco Sheet,” “Church of Satan Chat Room Policies,” and “Sycophants Unite!” on the official website. 23. This is important, as this redefinition makes it clear that LaVey’s brand of Satanism is not “about” Christianity—it is anti-hegemonic and countercultural, but not anti-Christian or left wing. 24. Specifically, he adopts Bryan Wilson’s term “manipulationist sect” (Alfred 1976: 199–200). 25. Relevant studies of the ToS include Dyrendal 2009, 2012; Granholm 2009, 2013a; Harvey 1995; La Fontaine 1999; Petersen 2009c, 2012; and Scott [1983] 2007. Important sources include Aquino [1975] 1985, [1975] 2002, 2010; Flowers 1997; Webb 1999, 2004, as well as the entire Jeweled Tablets of Set, if they can be obtained. See also the magazine The Scroll of Set, the material on the official homepage at http://www.xeper.org, and the personal podcast archive ­KHPRVOD at http://www.khpr.org. 26. For more information, visit the homepage or see Aquino [1975] 2010: ch. 3; Granholm 2013a: 219–223; and La Fontaine 1999: 103 ff. 27. On magic in the ToS, see Aquino [1975] 2010; Webb 1999, 2004; Flowers 1997. Scholarly treatments include Dyrendal 2009, 2012; Granholm 2013a; Petersen 2012.

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28. In practice, however, the example of a Greater Magic Working provided by Aquino resembles rituals of the CoS (compare Aquino [1975] 2010: 108–125 with LaVey 1969: 107–152). 29. For studies addressing the status of modern Satanism online, see, e.g., Lewis 2001a; Petersen 2013b; Smoczynski 2009, 2013. Research dependent upon online material and thus illustrating the variety of Satanism online include Dyrendal 2008; Faxneld 2013c; Petersen 2012; Sieg 2013. 30. See the website at http://www.satanicreds.org, where a huge amount of material can be obtained, including a series of copied monographs on various aspects of the Dark Doctrines. I have found Jantsang 1990; Marsh 1990; and Marsh, Hill, and Jantsang 1990 to be helpful along with introductions such as the FAQ sheet (SR, FAQ), “The Nine Satanic Postulates” (SR, Nine), and “The Roots of Satanic Reds Organization” (Jantsang and Marsh, n.d.) from the website. 31. The group is at pains to explain that it is not “red” in a political sense, nor “leftwing,” but rather “communist” understood as social realist and radical (SR, FAQ). Nevertheless, they discuss soft socialist issues and proudly use the sickle within a pentagram as their logo. 32. This figure was given in personal communication with the author March 20, 2008. 33. On Chaos Magick and appropriations of cultural material, see, e.g., Evans 2007; Faxneld 2013a; Petersen 2011b, 2012; Sutcliffe 1995; Urban 2006. 34. The pentagram or pentacle with two points up and one down is often called an “inverted” pentagram, while the one with one point up and two down is not adjectivized. I have decided to use the less value-laden terms “material” and “spiritual,” as they seem to be accepted by Satanists, Wiccans, and magicians without the baggage of a particular interpretation. 35. See Aquino [1975] 2010: 48–54; “The History of the Origin of the Sigil of Baphomet and its Use in the Church of Satan” at http://www.churchofsatan.com/ Pages/BaphometSigil.html; and Satanic Reds’ “Symbols of Satan?— Baphomet—Four articles” at http://www.satanicreds.org/satanicreds/baph. html for insider explanations of the history and function of this sign.

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LaVey, Anton S. 1998. Satan Speaks! Venice: Feral House. Lewis, James R. 2001a. “Who Serves Satan? A Demographic and Ideological Profile.” Marburg Journal of Religion 6 (2). Online. Retrieved from http://www.unimarburg.de/fb03/ivk/mjr/past_issues/1999-2001. ———. 2001b. Satanism Today: An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture. ABC-Clio. ———. 2002. “Diabolical Authority: Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible and the Satanist ‘Tradition.’” Marburg Journal of Religion 7 (1). Online. Retrieved from http://www.uni-marburg.de/fb03/ivk/mjr/past_issues/2002-2004. ———. 2010. “Fit for the Devil: Toward an Understanding of ‘Conversion’ to Satanism.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 1, no.1: 117–138. ———. 2013. “Conversion to Satanism: Constructing Diabolical Identities.” In The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, edited by P. Faxneld and J. Aa. Petersen, 145–167. New York: Oxford University Press. Lewis, James R., and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, eds. 2008. The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of Satanism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. Lowney, Kathleen S. 1995. “Teenage Satanism as Oppositional Youth Subculture.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 23: 453–484. Luijk, Ruben van. 2013. “Sex, Science, and Liberty: The Resurrection of Satan in 19th Century (Counter) Culture.” In The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, edited by P. Faxneld and J. Aa. Petersen, 41–53. New York: Oxford University Press. Lyons, Arthur. [1970] 1988. Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America. New York: Mysterious Press (first published as The Second Coming: Satanism in America by Dodd). Marsh, Phillip. 1990. Western Roots, Part One: Pythagoras, Plato and the Hellenes. Self-published. Marsh, Phillip, Wayne Hill, and Tani Jantsang. 1990. Western Roots, Part Two. Self-published. Mathews, Chris. 2009. Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a Radical Subculture. Westport, CT: Praeger. Medway, Gareth J. 2001. Lure of the Sinister: The Unnatural History of Satanism. New York: New York University Press. Möller, Melanie. 2007. Satanismus Als Religion Der Überschreitung: Transgression under Stereotype Darstellung in Erfahrungs- Und Aussteigerberichten. Marburg: diagonal-Verlag. Moody, Edward J. [1971] 1974. “Urban Witches.” In On the Margins of the Visible: Sociology, the Esoteric and the Occult, edited by E. Tiryakian, 223–234. New York: John Wiley and Sons. ———. 1974. “Magical Therapy: An Anthropological Investigation of Contemporary Satanism.” In Religious Movements in Contemporary America, edited by I. I. Zaretsky and M. P. Leone, 355–382. Princeton: Princeton University Press.



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Mørk, Gry. 2009. “’With My Art I Am the Fist in the Face of God’: On Old-School Black Metal.” In Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, edited by J. Aa. Petersen, 171–198. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Moynihan, Michael, and Søderlind, Didrik. 1998. Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. Venice: Feral House. Murchembled, Robert. [2000] 2003. A History of the Devil: From the Middle Ages to the Present. Translated by Jean Birell. Oxford: Polity Press. Olson, Benjamin H. 2013. “At the Threshold of the Inverted Womb: Anti-Cosmic Satanism and Radical Freedom.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 4, no. 2: 231–251. Paradise, Matt G. 2007. Bearing the Devil’s Mark. n.p.: Purging Talon. Parfrey, Adam, ed. [1987] 1990. Apocalypse Culture. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Feral House. Partridge, Christopher. 2004. The Re-Enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture. Vol. 1. London: T & T Clark. ———. 2005. The Re-Enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture. Vol. 2. London: T & T Clark. Petersen, Jesper Aa., ed. 2009a. Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ———. 2009b. “Introduction: Embracing Satan.” In Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, edited by J. Aa. Petersen, 1–25. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ———. 2009c. “Satanists and Nuts: Schisms in Modern Satanism.” In Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide, edited by S. Lewis and J. R. Lewis, 218–247. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2011a. “’Smite Him Hip and Thigh’: Satanism, Violence, and Transgression.” In Violence and New Religious Movements, edited by J. R. Lewis, 351–376. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2011b. “‘We Demand Bedrock Knowledge’: Modern Satanism between Secularized Esotericism and ‘Esotericized’ Secularism.” In Handbook of Religion and the Authority of Science, edited by O. Hammer and J. R. Lewis, 67–114. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2011c. Between Darwin and the Devil: Modern Satanism as Discourse, Milieu, and Self. PhD dissertation. Dept. of Archaeology and Religious Studies, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. ———. 2012. “The Seeds of Satan: Conceptions of Magic in Contemporary Satanism.” Aries 12 (1): 91–129. ———. 2013a. “The Carnival of Dr. LaVey: Articulations of Transgression in Modern Satanism.” In The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, edited by P. Faxneld and J. Aa. Petersen, 167–189. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2013b. “From Book to Bit: Enacting Satanism Online.” In Contemporary Esotericism, edited by E. Asprem and K. Granholm, 134–159. London: Equinox.

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Petersen, Jesper Aa. 2013c. “Bracketing Beelzebub: Introducing the academic study of Satanism.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 4, no. 2: 161–177. Petros, George. 2007. Art that Kills: A Panoramic Portrait of Aesthetic Terrorism 1984–2001. n.p.: Creation Books. Richardson, James, Joel Best and David Bromley, eds. 1991. The Satanism Scare. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Russell, Jeffrey Burton. 1977. The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1981. Satan: The Early Christian Tradition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1984. Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1986. Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1989. The Prince of Darkness. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1991. “The Historical Satan.” In The Satanism Scare, edited by J. Richardson, J. Best, and D. Bromley, 41–49. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Sass, James D. 2007. Essays in Satanism. Daytona Beach, FL: The Devil’s Bookshelf/ lulu.com. Schmidt, Joachim. 1992. Satanismus—Mythos und Wirklichkeit. Marburg: Diagonal Verlag. Schreck, Nikolas, and Zeena Schreck. 2002. Demons of the Flesh: The Complete Guide to Left Hand Path Sex Magic. n.p.: Creation Books. Scott, Gini Graham. [ 1983] 2007. The Magicians. New York: Irvington. Senholt, Jacob C. 2013. “Secret Identities in the Sinister Tradition: Political Esotericism and the Convergence of Radical Islam, Satanism, and National Socialism in the Order of the Nine Angles.” In The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, edited by P. Faxneld and J. Aa. Petersen, 250–274. New York: Oxford University Press. Shankbone, David. 2007. “Satanism: An Interview with Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore.” Online. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Satanism:_An _interview_with_Church_of_Satan_High_Priest_Peter_Gilmore. Sieg, George. 2013. “Angular Momentum: From Traditional to Progressive Satanism in the Order of the Nine Angles.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 4, no. 2: 251–282. Smoczynski, Rafal. 2009. “Cyber-Satanism and Imagined Satanism: Dark Symptoms of Late Modernity.” In Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, edited by J. Aa. Petersen, 141–152. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ———. 2013. “The Making of Satanic Collective Identities in Poland: From Mechanic to Organic Solidarity.” In The Devil’s Party: Satanism and Modernity, edited by P. Faxneld and J. Aa. Petersen, 189–203. New York: Oxford University Press.



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Søderlind, Didrik, and Asbjørn Dyrendal. 2009. “Social Democratic Satanism? Some Examples of Satanism in Scandinavia.” In Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, edited by J. Aa. Petersen, 154–170. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. SR, FAQ. N.d. “FAQ for Satanic Reds.” No Author. Online. http://www.satanicreds. org/satanicreds/faq.html. SR, Nine. N.d. “The Nine Satanic Postulates – Statements of Satano-COMMUNE-ist Reality, Satanic Comm-UNITY.” No author. Online. http://www.satanicreds.org/ satanicreds/9-sat-tan.html. Sutcliffe, Richard. 1995. “Left Hand Path Ritual Magic: A Historical and Philosophical Overview.” In Paganism Today, edited by G. Harvey and C. Hardman, 109–138. London: HarperCollins Publishers. Truzzi, Marcello. 1972. “The Occult Revival as Popular Culture: Some Random Observations on the Old and the Nouveau Witch.” Sociological Quarterly 13 (Winter): 16–36. ———. 1974a. “Towards a Sociology of the Occult: Notes on Modern Witchcraft.” In Religious Movements in Contemporary America, edited by I. I. Zaretsky and M. P. Leone, 628–645. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1974b. “Definitions and Dimensions of the Occult: Towards a Sociological Perspective.” In On the Margins of the Visible: Sociology, the Esoteric and the Occult, edited by E. Tiryakian, 243–255. New York: John Wiles and Sons. Urban, H. B. 2006. Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Victor, Jeffrey S. 1993. Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend. Chicago: Open Court. Webb, Don. 1999. Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left Hand Path. Smithville, TX: Rûna-Raven Press. ———. 2004. Mysteries of the Temple of Set: Inner Teachings of the Left Hand Path. Smithville, TX: Rûna-Raven Press, 2004. Wolfe, Burton H. 2008. The Black Pope: The Authentic Biography of Anton Szandor Lavey. n.p.: Self-published pdf-file. Wright, Lawrence. 1991. “Sympathy for the Devil.” Rolling Stone, September 5.

Index

“f” indicates material in figures. “n” indicates material in notes. “t” indicates material in tables. “6th Sense, The,” 340, 342 13X, Clarence, 123–24 “14 words” (Lane), 389 88 (Heil Hitler), 389 600 club, 416 A and A2 (films), 224 Abel ideology, 39. See also democracy Abhidharma Buddhism, 414 Abrahim (gypsy spirit), 28 abuse by Branch Davidians, 67 in COG/Family, 16, 18–22, 30 in ISKCON, 152 at Peoples Temple, 55, 57–58 Satanism and, 406, 420 in Scientology, 267–68 Singer on cultic, 45 universality of, 47 acarya, 152 Accueillir les extra-terrestres (Raël), 371 Activated Program, 25–26, 33 Acts, Book of, 84, 96n.7 Adam (biblical), 39, 40, 103 Adamski, George, 368–69

Adept, 411, 412 adolescents, 65, 417, 424n.10. See also teenagers Adonai, 375 Advaitin teachings, 160, 173n.5, 414 Advanced Organization, 263 advertising, 305, 352–54, 362 Aesir, 334 Aetherius Society, 355, 362, 369 “Affirmation of Suffering Vow,” 204 Africa. See also individual countries back-to-Africa movement, 116, 119 COG/Family in, 21 exorcisms in, 97n.12 image of, in early 20th century, 117 tribal religions in, 316 UPF and, 43 African Americans, 54–55, 115–121 Afro-Caribbean religions, 316 afterglow meetings, 87, 88 Agama Sutras, 196, 203, 230n.19 Agasha Temple of Wisdom, 134 Agni Yoga, 271 Agon-shu, 196, 200, 201, 210–11, 230n.9

436

Index

Aguilera, Davy, 67, 76 Ahmadiyya movement, 117, 126n.3 AIDS, 20, 43, 63, 92 air, 325 Åkerbäck, Peter, 296–97 Albigensians, 95n.3 alchemy, 272 alcohol use, 120, 123, 133, 247, 353 Aleph, 221. See also Aum Shinrikyo Alexandrian tradition, 318 Alfred, Randall, 409–10, 421, 425n.17 Ali, Muhammad, 122 Ali, Noble Drew, 116–18, 119 aliens, human, illegal, 20, 23 aliens, non-human. See extraterrestrials Allah (nee Clarence Smith), 124 Allah (deity), 72, 114, 118–121, 123–24 “alternativity,” 331, 343n.2 Amenta Club, 288–89 American Heart Association, 171 American Indian Movement, 55 American Medical Association, 260, 265 American Nazi Party, 385 American New Thought, 303 American Psychology Association, 265 Amish, 387 Amplified Bible, 361 Amsterdam, Peter, 21–24, 26–27, 32 Anaheim, 91–92, 108 Analytical Mind, 259 Ananda Marga, 352 anarchism, 387, 404 Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), 134, 288, 291 ancient astronaut theories, 371–77 angels, 28, 141, 272–73, 309–10, 356 Angelucci, Orfeo, 368–69 Anglican Church, 306 animal imitation, 93, 97n.18 animated films (anime), 228, 230n.14 anointing, 84, 87, 95n.4

Anonymous Sexaholics Celibate Church, 353 Antichrist, 28, 286 anti-cult movement (ACM) aim of, 44 China, Falun Gong, and, 252 COG/Family and, 3, 15, 21–22 ISKCON and, 148 in Japan, 225 media and, 44–45 MSIA and, 136 on NRMs, 45, 47 Peoples Temple and, 64–65 Scientology and, 265 on September 11 terrorist attacks, 64 on Solar Temple, 287 TM and, 163 Antiochus (king), 357 Antisubversive Activities Law, 220 Apocalypse Observed (Hall & Trinh), 295 apocalypticism. See also millennialism in Aum Shinrikyo, 201, 210–14, 231n.28, 295 in Branch Davidians, 4, 74, 76–77, 295 in Buddhism, 231n.28, 249 in California, 359 in Christianity, 355–56 in Church Universal and Triumphant, 275–78 in COG/Family, 25, 29 dualism and, 293 in Falun Gong, 6, 245, 249–250 in Heaven’s Gate, 295, 297, 365 in I AM movement, 275 Jewish, in inter-testamental period, 356 in Nation of Islam, 121 New Age spiritualties and, 307 Nostradamus and, 201, 210–14 in Peoples Temple, 295, 297 in Raëlian religion, 370

Index 437 salvation in, 293 in Satanism, 406, 424n.13 in Solar Temple, 293–95, 297 in Taoism, 249 violence and, 293–95 youth counterculture and, 295 Apocalyptic Trajectories (Walliss), 295 apostolic socialism, 297 Applewhite, Marshall, 8, 296, 349–355, 358–363, 365 Applied Scholastics, 264 Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, The (Dowling), 116, 283n.3 Aquino, Michael, 406, 410–12, 422, 426n.28 Archédia Clubs, 288–89 Argentina, 93, 108 ariosophy, 384, 390–91 Arius, 363 Arizona, 394 arks, 276, 370 Armageddon, 29, 74, 76–77, 210–13 Arnott, John, 92–93, 94 Art of Living (AoL) Foundation, 6, 159, 164–173, 174n.20 Aryans, 383–393, 396n.1 Asahara Shoko, 195–218, 220–22, 227–232, 234, 296 Àsatrú, 9, 316, 320, 333, 383–85, 393–94 Àsatrú Alliance, 320 Ascended Masters, 271–72, 274–76, 278, 281–82, 351, 368 ascension, 72, 271–72, 274, 282, 357, 359–360 asceticism, 95n.1, 146, 149, 151, 196–97 Ashlag, Yehuda, 103–6, 112n.3, 112n.4 Ashram Notes (Prophet), 274 Asia. See also individual countries COG/Family in, 15, 18, 19, 23, 26 Falun Gong in, 241 Osho Centers in, 185 TTC in, 19

Asian Americans, 119 “Asiatics,” 117, 118 Astarte Education, 308–10 Astounding Science Fiction magazine, 258 astral trips, 209, 214, 368. See also soul travel astrology, 105, 201, 208–10, 214, 290 Astron Argon (AA), 399–400 Athanasius, 363 atheism, 375–76, 384, 403, 408, 416–17 Atlanta Club, 288 Atlantis, 391 atomic bombs, 261, 368, 370 Attica Prison, 124 “audience corruption,” 61 audience cults, 369 audiotapes of Asahara’s lectures, 204 Branch Davidian–FBI negotiation tapes, 72, 79n.13 from Peoples Temple, 57, 58, 60–64 of Prophet, 282 of Rajneesh, 186 auditing, 259–263 auditors, 259–260, 262–63, 265–66 Augustine of Hippo, 95n.3 aum, 229n.5 Aum Shinrikyo, 1–2, 6, 195–234, 286, 293–96, 299 Aum shinsen-no-kai, 196–97 Aupers, Stef, 305 auras, 136, 271, 272 Australia Aum Shinrikyo in, 218, 225, 233n.45 COG/Family in, 15, 22 COTC in, 396n.1 Falun Gong in, 241 ISKCON in, 148 Scientology in, 263, 264 Solar Temple in, 289 Author Services, 264

438

Index

avatars, 146, 191, 230n.11 “Awakened,” 286 Azusa Street revival, 83 Baba Sawan Singh, 138 Babylon (kingdom), 73 Bach, Richard, 231n.25 Bach Flower Therapy, 340 Back-to-Africa movement, 116, 119 bacteriological weapons, 211, 234n.62 Bainbridge, William Sims, 374 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 363 Balch, Robert, 350, 351, 354 Balder (deity), 392–93 Ballard, Edna, 271–73 Ballard, Guy, 271–76, 368 Baltimore, 124 “Ban the Bomb!” (Berg), 19 Baraka Holistic Center, 135 Baranyai, Elizabeth, 75 Barker, Eileen, 42, 46–48, 173n.6, 189, 350 Barthes, Roland, 350 Barton, Blanche, 406, 407 Beach Boys, 162 Beal, Timothy, 115 Beam, Jack & Rheaviana, 54 Beam, Louis, 389 Bearing the Devil’s Mark (Paradise), 422 Beatles, 147, 161, 171, 172 Beckford, James A., 44–45, 161, 162, 170–72, 174n.17, 361 Beijing, 243, 251, 252 Beltaine, 320, 325 Bendriss, Lilli, 337–39, 341 benevolence, 245, 246, 251 Bengali Vaisnava tradition, 144, 146, 148 Berg, David Brandt, 13–24, 26–31, 33 Berg, Herbert, 116, 117 Berg, Karen, 103, 104, 111 Berg, Michael, 104, 107, 108, 111, 112n.7

Berg, Philip, 103–8, 111, 112n.3, 112n.7 Berg, Yehuda, 104, 107, 108, 111, 112n.7 Berger, Peter, 419 Bernard, Raymond, 291 Bernard of Clairvaux (saint), 83 Bethurum, Truman, 368–69 Bhagavad Gita, 358 Bhagavata Purana, 146 bhakti, 146 Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Srila, 145–46 Bhaktivinode Thakur, Srila, 146 Bible. See also individual books Aetherius Society on, 362 Amplified, 361 ancient astronaut theories and, 373, 377 anointing and, 95n.4 Ashlag on, 104–6 Berg (David) on, 26, 27 Berg (Philip) on, 103, 106 Branch Davidians and, 69–77 COG/Family and, 26 creationism and, 375–76 Davidians and, 69, 71, 73 Day-Age theory and, 376 Elohim in, 369, 379n.2 FBI on Branch Davidians’ interpretation of, 67–68, 73, 74 Heaven’s Gate and, 8, 352, 355, 357–363 horticultural metaphors in, 358 Jessup on, 372 Jones and, 55 Kabbalah and, 102, 105 King James Version of, 361 Muhammad (Elijah) on, 120 NRMs and, 96n.8 in Pentecostalism, 82 Peoples Temple and, 55, 377 Prophet (Elizabeth Clare) on, 270

Index 439 in Raëlian religion, 369–370, 373, 376–77 “reader criticism” of, 364 Smith’s radio broadcasts on, 85 Torah. See Torah UFOs and, 355, 361–62 Unarius on, 362 Unificationism and, 38, 377 von Däniken on, 362 Zohar and, 102 Big Bang theory, 207, 376 Big House commune, 84 bin Laden, Osama, 64 biological weapons, 211, 212, 226 bioterrorism, 184 birth control, 19 bisexuals, 61, 97n.16, 327, 351 Bishop, Russell, 136 bison, 280 Black Eagle Medicine Woman, 338. See also Tørum, Gro-Helen Black Flame, 412, 418 The Black Flame magazine, 409, 425n.16 Black Flame of Set, 412 Black Gods of the Metropolis (Fauset), 115 Black Magic (Aquino), 411, 412 Black Panther Party, 122 blacks, 54–55, 117, 119–120, 395–96. See also African Americans Blain, Jenny, 334, 344n.9 Blavatsky, Helena Petrovina, 271–73, 358, 391, 405 Blessing ceremony, 41 blot, 321, 392–93 bodhisattva, 204, 209 body thetans, 261 Bogdan, Henrik, ix, 7, 286–299 Boisselier, Brigitte, 378 Bolter, J. David, 336 bomb shelters, 7, 276–79

Bonn, 217 Book of Coming Forth by Night, The (Aquino), 412, 422 Book of Shadows (Gardner), 322, 325, 327 Book of the Law (Crowley), 412 Book which tells the truth, The (Raël), 370, 376 Brackett, D. W., 226–27 brahmacarya, 149 Brahmananda, 160 brainwashing Barker’s study of, 46–48, 350 Chryssides on, 350 in Church Universal and Triumphant, 275 by Falun Gong, 251 FREECOG on, 15 Japanese poetry on, 234n.62, 234n.66 Lifton’s theory on, 227 Peoples Temple deaths and, 63 by Solar Temple, 287 by Unification Church, 45–48 Branch Davidians background of, 68–74 Church Universal and Triumphant and, 278, 282 fire in Mount Carmel Center, 67, 78n.2 Gallagher’s study of, 4, 67–78 Heaven’s Gate and, 8, 296, 350 media and, 68, 78, 171, 173n.4, 282 Peoples Temple and, 68, 296 on “present truth,” 72, 73, 79n.16 research on, 1–2, 293–96 Solar Temple and, 286, 295–96, 299 Brandwein, Yehudah, 112n.3 Brazil, 54, 190 Breault, Marc, 75–76 Breslaw, Anna, 399 Breyer, Jacques, 288, 291

440

Index

bricolage, 179, 332, 341 Bridge Publications, 264 Bridge to Freedom (I AM movement), 274 The Bridge to Total Freedom (Scientology), 261–62, 264, 265, 268 British Columbia, 385 Brooks, C. R., 150–51 Brown, Courtney, 355 Brownsville revival, 93 Bruce, Steve, 303–4, 305 brucellosis, 280 Brüders Schweigen, 394 Buckland, Raymond, 322 Budapest, Zsuzsanna, 322, 327 Buddha Agon-shu’s relic from, 230n.9 Asahara and, 197–98, 203–4, 217, 230nn.10-11 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 272 extraterrestrials and, 370 Falun Gong on, 241 in “Four Stages of Entering the Stream,” 204 Okawa’s identification with, 230n.11 in Raëlian religion, 370, 379n.6 Rajneesh’s ideal, 187 Shaku on murder, war, and teachings of, 231n.22 Three Treasures of, 204 Buddhafield, 182, 188 Buddhism Abhidharma, 414 Agon-shu and, 201, 230n.9 apocalypticism in, 231n.28, 249 Aum Shinrikyo and, 196–98, 200–207, 212–15, 217, 230–31n.19 celibacy in, 222–23 Christianity and, 212–13

Druids and, 320 Falun Gong and, 241, 247 fundamentalist, 213 Guide of the rainbow (Nakazawa), 201 “Hinayana,” 203–5, 214, 231n.19 Jainism and, 180 in Japan, 196–98 karma in, 6, 214, 248 Li Hongzhi and, 243–45, 248 Mahayana, 203–5, 211, 214, 231n.19 Maitreya in, 231n.28, 379n.8 materialism and, 213 mikkyo, 196 millennialism in, 231n.28 murder and, 231n.22 name change in, 234n.56 Original Buddhist Scriptures (Nakamura), 201 in Osho movement, 186 qigong and, 242 Raël and, 371, 379n.8 Rajneesh on, 186 reincarnation in, 141 samadhi in, 230n.17 Satanism and, 403, 414, 419 science and, 200 on self, 141 supernatural powers and, 214 Tantric, 205–6, 214, 217, 231n.19, 403, 414 Vajrayana, 205, 217, 222, 231n.19 Wotansvolk and, 392 Zen, 186, 187, 231n.22 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), 4, 67, 75–76, 295 Bush, George H., 384 business management, 305, 306, 312n.5 Byron, Lord George, 405 Cain ideology, 39. See also communism Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Sri Krsna, 146

Index 441 Caitanya movement, 146, 154 California apocalypticism in, 359 Azusa Street revival in, 83 Berg’s ministry in, 14 Black Panther Party in, 122 Calvary Chapel in, 85–92 Church of Satan in, 407 Church Universal and Triumphant in, 274–75, 279 Corona Christian Center in, 85 Eckankar headquarters in, 134 Foundation for Shamanic Studies in, 333 Frisbee’s missionary work in, 84–85 Heaven’s Gate in, 354–55 ISKCON in, 151 Jesus People movement in, 83–84 Kabbalah Centre in, 104, 108 New Age spiritualties in, 303 Peoples Temple in, 53–55, 58, 61 Scientology in, 263–65 Third Great Awakening in, 83 TM in, 159 Vineyard movement in, 91–92 Wotansvolk in, 389, 394, 395 Call of Our Ancient Nordic Religion (Mills), 385 Calvary Chapel, 4, 81, 82, 85–92, 94 Camelot, 274 Camisards, 95n.3 Campbell, Colin, 311–312n.1, 374, 423n.3 Canaanites, 117 Canaanite Temple, 117. See also Moorish Science Temple Canada Applewhite and Nettles in, 352, 353 COG/Family in, 14, 15 Falun Gong in, 241 Odinist Fellowship in, 385 Roden’s missionary work in, 71 Solar Temple in, 7, 287, 289

Toronto Blessing, 92–94 white power culture in, 385 Canary Islands, 16 capitalism, 253, 297, 304, 386–88, 410 cargo cults, 1 Carlsen, Robin, 6, 163–64, 166, 167, 174n.16 Carto, Willis, 385 cartoons, 225. See also animated films; comic books Castaneda, Carlos, 331, 333 castration, 354 cataclysms Aum Shinrikyo on, 195, 210–14 Ballard on, 275 Berg (David) on, 15, 29 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 7, 275–78 Jones on, 54 Solar Temple on, 294 Sukyo Mahikari on, 231n.27 catharsis sessions, 58, 61. See also self-criticism sessions Catholicism charismata in, 82, 95n.1, 95n.3 ecclesial tradition in, 82 Knights Templar and, 291 Madonna and, 104 materialism and, 187 ongoing changes in, 268 cattle, 280 Caucasian Americans, 117. See also whites Cave and Cosmos (Harner), 334–35, 342 CBS television, 282 Celebrity Centers, 264 celibacy, 75, 77, 149, 196, 205, 216, 222–23 “cell groups,” 88–89, 96n.10 Celtic society, 319, 325, 384 Centre for the Preparation of the New Age, 288

442

Index

cessationism, 82–83 chakras, 202, 308, 392 Chalcedon, council of, 363 Chancellor, James D., ix, 3, 13–33 Chanhassen, 134 channeling, 139, 271, 276, 338, 351, 371, 412 Chaos Magick, 403, 415, 426n.33 Chariots of the Gods? (von Däniken), 355, 372 charisma, 82, 87, 94, 350, 410 charismata, 4, 82–95, 95n.1, 95n.3 Charismatic Renewal, 82 charismatics, 81, 93, 95, 97n.13, 173n.11 “Charter of Rights and Responsibilities,” 23–24 chemical weapons, 211, 212, 226 Chevreau, Guy, 93 Chicago, 116, 117, 119, 124 Chidester, David, 377 children abuse of, 18, 20–22, 67, 152, 420 Asahara on, 205 in Aum Shinrikyo, 216 of Branch Davidians, 75 in COG/Family, 17–23, 28, 31–33 the Devil and behavior of, 28 in ISKCON, 154 of Jesus, 40 National Socialism on pure, 388 in Peoples Temple, 53, 55–58, 60–63 in Scientology, 267 of True Families, 41 Children of God (COG), 3, 13–18, 26–33. See also The Family China, 6, 190, 241–253 China Falun Gong (Li), 245 Chinese characters, 196, 229n.8 Chinese Qigong Scientific Research Association, 243 Chonoryoku himitsu no kaihatsu-ho (Asahara), 209

Chopra, Deepak, 166, 168, 174n.12, 174n.16 “Christaquarians,” 306 Christensen, Aage Alex, 385 Christensen, Else, 385–87 Christian and Missionary Alliance, 14 Christianity. See also individual denominations African Americans and, 117, 119 angels in, 309–10 apocalypticism in, 355–56 Aryans and, 384, 386 Asahara on, 212–13, 232n.33 Book of Revelation and, 355–56 Buddhism and, 212–13 ceremonial magic in, 322 Church of Satan and, 409–10, 425n.23 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 271 Druids and, 319–320 Heaven’s Gate and, 355, 358–360 Jewish texts and, 364 Kabbalah and, 102 Klassen on, 395– 96n.1 in Korea, 42 materialism and, 213 Neopaganism and, 323–24, 326, 384 New Age spiritualties and, 7–8, 302, 306–11 Nicene Creed studies in, 363 in Norway, 308–10, 343n.2 OTO and, 401 racist, 384 Rajneesh on, 186 Roman Empire and, 355 Satanic Reds and, 414–16 Satanism and, 400–403, 405, 420, 423n.6, 424n.10 Scientology and, 266 spiritism and, 310 Sun Myung Moon and, 38

Index 443 Temple of Set and, 412 triumphalist narrative of, 326 UPF and, 43 whites and, 117, 384 witchcraft and, 318, 321 Wotansvolk’s leaders on, 390, 392 Christian literature, 302, 306–7, 312n.6 Christian Science, 274 Christ Self, 272 Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), 338 Chryssides, George D., ix, 94, 349–365, 371, 376–77 Church of Hu, 413 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), 134, 137, 176 Church of Norway, 307–10 Church of Odin, 385 Church of Satan (CoS), 401, 405–19, 421, 424–25nn.16–19, 426n.28, 426n.35 Church of Satan, The (Aquino), 412 Church of Satan, The (Barton), 409 Church of Scientology (CoS), 7, 257, 260–69, 400, 401 Church of Spiritual Technology, 263 Church of the Creator (COTC), 384, 395–96n.1 Church Universal and Triumphant, 7, 270–282 CIA, 62–64 Circle Seven Koran (Ali), 116–18 Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), 264 Clair (saint), 273 clairvoyance, 8, 244, 339–342 Clay, Cassius, 122 Clayton, Stanley, 62 clear, 259–263 Cleirbaut, Gilbert, 278, 281 Clement V (pope), 291 Cleopatra (queen), 339

Climb the Highest Mountain (Prophet), 274 Clonaid, 378 clones, 248, 378 clothing of Aum Shinrikyo members, 229n.3 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 273 of Heaven’s Gate members, 353–54 Li Hongzhi on, 247 Rajneesh on, 179, 181–83 of Satanists, 418 of shamans, 338, 340, 345n.26 of witches, 418 The Cloven Hoof magazine, 409, 425n.16 Cochrane, Robert, 318–19 Cog in the Wheel, A (Dissident), 389 Colford, Betsy, 41 Collins-Macchio, LaVerne, 278 Colorado, 274 comets, 211, 349, 355, 361 comic books (manga), 210, 223, 225, 228, 230n.14 commercialism, 110, 120 Communicant, 273 communism, 39, 220, 275, 307, 386, 426n.31 Communist Party of China, 244, 250–51 Communist Party of Japan, 217 Compleat Witch, The (LaVey), 405, 418 computers Aum Shinrikyo’s production of, 218 email, 247 Falun Gong on aliens and, 248–49 Heaven’s Gate and, 354–55 Internet. See Internet Osho applications for, 177, 178 podcasts, 425n.25 proof-text for, 97n.18 social media. See social media websites. See World Wide Web

444

Index

Concerned Relatives, 56 conscious mind, 259 consciousness Bendriss on, 339 in core shamanism, 344n.7 Falun Gong on, 247 Heathens on, 320–21 Hinkins on, 141 Kabbalah Centre on Jewish, 108 Krishna, 152 in MSIA, 135–36 in Osho etymology, 185 racial, 387 Solar Temple on, 294 Temple of Set on, 412 transcendental, 160–61, 173n.3 Consider the Poor Ministry, 33 conspiracy basis of belief in, 64 China, Falun Gong, and, 252 Christians on New Age, 307 LaVey on, 410 Peoples Temple deaths, theories on, 63–64 Satanism and, 410, 422 Scientology on, 266 Singer on cultic, 45 Solar Temple on, 289 Constantinople, council of, 363 consumerism, 304, 336, 387–88. See also materialism Contemporary Religious Satanism (Petersen), 420 “conversion careers,” 169, 174n.13 Cooper, Paulette, 266 Copenhagen, 263, 334 core shamanism, 333–35, 342, 343–44n.7 Corinthians, First Letter to, 82 Corinthians, Second Epistle to, 72 Corona Christian Center, 85 Cosmic Masters, 287, 296. See also Hidden Masters

Cosmic Voyage (Brown), 355 Council of Nine (CoS), 425n.17 Council of Nine (ToS), 411 Countdown to Armageddon (Gardell), 115 counterculture apocalypticism and, 295 Calvary Chapel and, 85–86 charismatics and, 83 Church of Satan and, 405 COG/Family and, 3, 14, 16 drug use in, 83 Eastern spirituality and, 147 ISKCON and, 144, 145, 147 Jesus People movement and, 13, 83–84 New Age spiritualties and, 303 racist Neopaganism and, 384 socioeconomics and, 147 TM and, 160–62, 172 covens, 318, 322 Craft Laws (Gardner), 327 creationism, 375–76 Creed of Iron (Darken), 389 Creed of Iron (McVan), 390 Criminon, 264 Crowley, Aleister Astron Argon and, 400 Book of Coming Forth by Night and, 412 Christianity and, 401 Gardner (Gerald) and, 322 on Neopaganism, 315, 328 OTO and, 322, 400, 401 Satanism and, 403, 405, 422 thelema and, 400, 416 Crystal Table of Set (Aquino), 412 Cthulhu mythos, 415 Cuba, 61 Cudjoe, 57 “Cult, Secularization and the Cultic Milieu, The” (Campbell), 311–312n.1, 374, 423n.3

Index 445 Cult Information Centre, 50n.8 cults categorization of issues with, 45 media coverage of, 44–45 milieu of, 303, 311–312n.1, 373–74, 423n.3 vs. NRMs, 44 research on, 1, 2 scholarly research on, 46, 48 tactics of, 45–46 Cumbey, Constance, 307, 312n.6 Curtis, Edward E., IV, 115, 117 Cyrus (king), 73 Daily Mail, 46–47 Dalai Lama, 172, 197, 198 Daniel, Book of, 357 dantai kisei-ho, 220, 225, 233n.51 Daoism, 196, 202, 214, 414 Darken, 389 Darwin, Charles, 419 Darwinism, 408 David (king), 73, 270 Davidians, 69–70, 73, 76–77. See also Branch Davidians Day-Age theory, 376 De, Abhay Charan, 145. See also Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami “Death as Initiation” (Bogdan), 297 decrees, 271–73, 276, 283n.2 DeHaas, Jocelyn H., ix, 7, 270–282 deliverance, 96n.11 democracy, 39, 42–43, 228, 289, 387 demons apostle Paul on Holy Spirit and, 82 cast out by missionaries, 88 COG/Family on, 28 exorcism of, 90–92, 96n.11, 97n.12, 97n.14 Falun Gong on, 248 Déné culture, 334

Denmark, 263, 264, 334, 385, 418, 420 deprogramming, 3, 278 Derrida, Jacques, 350, 360 desegregation, 54 Detroit, 116, 119 Deuteronomy, 357 Devi, Savatri, 391, 396n.3 Devil, 18, 28, 309, 402, 423n.6. See also Lucifer; Prince of Darkness; Satan “Devil Hates Sex!—But God Loves It, The!” (Berg), 18 Devil’s Notebook, The (LaVey), 409 Devil’s Party, The (Faxneld & Petersen), 420 dharma, 200, 204, 231n.28, 250 dharma wheel, 242, 245–46 Dianetics, 258–263, 265, 268 Dianetics (Hubbard), 258 “Dianic” witchcraft, 322 Dieckman, Josef, 62 diksa, 149, 152 Di Mambro, Joseph, 286–89, 291, 295–96 Dione, R. L., 372, 373 Disaster Approaches the Land of the Rising Sun (Asahara), 211–12 “discharge,” 259 Disciples of Christ, 54 Dissident, 389 District of Columbia (DC), 274 divination, 196, 201, 208, 309, 321, 334 Divine Principle, 38–42, 50n.3 divorce, 273 DNA, 339 Domitian (emperor), 355 Donnelly, Igantius, 372 Doomsday (Asahara), 210 Doonesbury cartoons, 137 Dowling, Levi, 116, 283n.3 Doyle, Clive, 72, 74, 76, 79n.22 dreams, 15, 28, 117, 131–32 Dream Voyages (Hinkins), 132

446 Drew, Timothy, 116. See also Ali, Nobel Drew “Drinking the Kool-Aid,” 64–65 drug addict ministries, 23, 83, 264 drug production, 208, 228 drug trafficking, 58, 182, 228, 388 drug use by Aum Shinrikyo, 207, 219 by Branch Davidians, 67 Falun Gong on, 247 FREECOG on, 15 by Frisbee, 84 Heaven’s Gate on, 353 LaVey on, 419 Nation of Islam on, 120, 121 by Peoples Temple members, 58 in Rajneeshpuram, 185 Smith (Clarence) on, 124 by Solar Temple members, 292 TM and, 161 in youth counterculture, 83, 85 Druids, 316, 319–320, 325, 333 dualism, 76, 293, 297–98, 400–403 dual nature of Caitanya, 146 of God, 39–40 of Satan, 402 duotheism, 318, 325 Duppils, Sara, 343n.4 Dutoit, Christopher Emmanuel, 286 Dwyer, Richard, 64 Dyrendal, Asbjørn, 413, 422 earth (element), 325, 417–18 Earth (female Five Percenter), 124 Earth (planet), 335, 370 earthquakes, 209, 212, 349, 357, 359 Earth School, 139, 141 Eastern esotericism, 416 Eastern Europe, 21, 23, 59. See also individual countries East Grinstead, 263

Index Ebeltoft, Lone, 340, 342, 345n.25 Eckankar, 2, 5, 133–35, 137–38, 142n.1 ecology, 288, 316, 387–88. See also environment economic systems ACM on NRM members and, 45 Aum Shinrikyo and, 209, 228 Barker on NRM membership and, 48, 189 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 275 COG/Family and, 14 sannyasins and, 188–190 stock market crash (1929), 116 educational systems Aum Shinrikyo and, 221, 228 COG/Family and, 14, 30 schools, 18, 20, 56, 264 Singer on cults and, 46 Education of a Kabbalist (Berg), 112n.3 Edwards, Jonathan, 83 ego, 186, 200 Egypt, 116, 322, 339, 357, 419 “Eightfold Holy Path,” 203 Einherjar, 393 Ein sof, 104 electronic warfare, 212 electro shock therapy, 264 Eleven Rules of the Earth, The, 408 Eliade, Mircea, 333 Elijah (biblical), 357 elk, 280 Ellwood, Robert, 1 El Morya, 271, 274, 276 Elohim, 369–371, 374–78, 379n.2 el-Shabazz, el-Hajj Malik, 122. See also X, Malcolm email, 247 Emerging New Age, The (Simmons), 139 E-meter, 262 Encyclopedia of American Religion (Melton), 173n.6

Index 447 Encyclopedia of New Religions (Partridge), 173n.6 Encyclopedia of Religion, The (Scheper), 82 England Anglican Church of, 306 COG/Family in, 22 Holy Trinity Brompton, 93 Koresh’s Bible study in, 75 New Age spiritualties in, 303 Scientology Organizations in, 263 Wicca in, 318 engrams, 259–262 Enjoy Happiness magazine, 209 enlightenment Asahara’s experience of, 196, 197, 202 of Aum Shinrikyo members, 200, 205, 230n.15 Carlsen’s experience of, 163 in Falun Gong, 245, 249–250 in “Hinayana” Buddhism, 204 malas and path to, 186 as product for marketplace, 163 Rajneesh’s experience of, 181 Vedic traditional, TM and, 173n.3 entrepreneurs, spiritual AoL schisms and, 170 charismatic Christian, 94 Chopra as, 174n.12 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as, 172 neo-shamans as, 332, 341–43 Sámi, 308 Shankar as, 165 environment Church Universal and Triumphant and, 279–280 Neopaganism and, 316, 319–320, 332, 335, 387–88 Sámi and, 334 Solar Temple and, 288 Unificationism and, 43

Ephesians, Letter to, 97n.17 Ephesus, council of, 363 Epicureanism, 408 epoche, 363 equinoxes, 287, 320, 323, 325, 376 Erhard Seminars Training (est), 136, 163 Eriksson, Jörgen I., 334, 335, 342 Esalen Institute, x, 182 escort services, 18 E.T. (film), 358 ethnicity, 107, 383–84 Etruscans, 384 Europe. See also individual countries Ali (Noble) on Christianity and whites in, 117 Àsatrú and, 383 COG/Family in, 15, 18–23 COTC in, 396n.1 ISKCON in, 148 KC centers in, 104 Osho Centers in, 185 Rajneesh meditation centers in, 181 Shankar in, 164 TM in, 164 TTC in, 19 European Americans, 383 Eusebius (father), 95n.3 evangelical Christianity Berg and, 14 COG/Family and, 3, 16, 26 inductive experiential approach and, 97n.13 Jesus People movement and, 13 New Age spiritualties and, 7–8, 302, 306–7, 311 spiritual healing in, 28 Eve (biblical), 39, 40, 103 Eve (Clonaid baby), 378 evil apocalyptic dualism on, 76, 293 Applewhite on, 359 Aum Shinrikyo as, 215

448

Index

evil (continued) Berg (David) on, 14, 30 Berg (Philip) on, 105 Branch Davidians on, 76 COG/Family members on, 28 Kabbalah on, 102 magic and, 337, 417 New Age spiritualties on, 336–37 power, duration of, 357 Satanists as, 400, 403, 417 Tørum on, 336–37 Unificationism on, 42 evolution Analytical and Reactive Mind in, 259 Brown on, 355 creationists on, 376 Heaven’s Gate on, 353 New Age spiritualties and, 139 Raëlian religion and, 376 Solar Temple on, 294 Spangler on, 140 Exodus, 271, 357 exorcisms, 90–92, 96n.11, 97n.12, 97n.14 Exorcist, The (film), 97n.14 Exposing Cults (Lane), 137 extortion, 275 extraterrestrials Aetherius Society on, 355, 362, 369 Brown on, 355 Buddha and, 370 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 273 contact with, in person, 368–69 Falun Gong on, 6, 248–49 Farrakhan and, 123 Fort on, 372 God and, 370, 371 Heaven’s Gate on, 352, 358, 360, 362 Jesus and, 360, 370 kidnapping by, 248, 371, 379n.5 Li Hongzhi on, 250

Muhammad (Abu al-Qasim) and, 370 Muhammad (Elijah) and, 123 myths and, 371–72 Raëlian religion on, 9, 369–371, 373–79 spacecraft. See flying saucer; unidentified flying object Unarius on, 355, 362 von Däniken on, 355, 362, 372 Ezekiel (biblical), 356 Fabré-Palaprat, Bernard-Raymond, 291 Facebook, 191, 406, 413 Fagan, Livingstone, 74–75, 79n.20 Falun Dafa, 241 Falun Gong, 2, 6, 241–253 The Family, 2, 3, 13–33 Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, 38. See also Unification Church fantasy literature, 244, 264 Far Country, The (Twitchell), 138 Fard, Wali, 119, 124 Farley, Helen, ix–x, 6, 241–253 Farrakhan, Louis, 115, 123 fascism, 387, 422 fashen, 246 Father David. See Berg, David Brandt fatwas, 126n.1 Fauset, Arthur Huff, 115 Faxneld, Per, 420–22 Fear (Hubbard), 258 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on “Bible babble,” 67–68, 73, 74 Branch Davidians negotiation tapes with, 72, 79n.13 Branch Davidians siege by, 67, 70 Malcolm X and, 122–23 Moorish Science Temple and, 118 Nation of Islam and, 122–23 Fellow Members, 21, 24

Index 449 feminism Li Hongzhi on, 247 Neopaganism and, 316, 319, 322, 326–27 occultism and, 326 religious patriarchy and, 316 Roden (Lois) on Holy Spirit and, 71 Satanism and, 422 Ferme des Rochettes, 286 Final Blackout (Hubbard), 258 Final Call newspaper, 120 Findhorn Foundation, 140 Finke, Roger, 166–69 Finland, 334 fire in Branch Davidian center, 67, 78n.2 Church Universal and Triumphant decrees on, 276 Druid/Wiccan festivals of, 320, 325 Elijah and, 357 Holy Spirit and, 96n.7 Knights Templar burned at the stake, 291 Moses and, 357 representations for, 325, 418 in Solar Temple rituals, 286–87, 291, 298 Wotansvolk’s Lane on paramilitary use of, 390 First Great Awakening, 83 Five Percenters, 5, 115, 123–25 Flag Service Organization, 263, 267 Flirty Fishing, 16–18, 20, 31–32 Florida, 93, 263, 385, 388, 394 flying saucer, 84, 368, 372, 378. See also unidentified flying object “flying saucer clubs,” 369 food Church Universal and Triumphant on, 273, 275, 280 Falun Gong on, 247

Klassen on, 396n.1 kosher, for KC events, 107, 108 Nation of Islam on, 120, 121 Osho movement on, 179 Sant Mat on, 133 in Scientology’s RPF, 268 stealing of, in Jonestown, 59 in Unification Church, 42 in Wicca, 325 Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 260, 265 forbearance, 245, 246, 252 Forbes, Malcolm, 275 Ford, Henry, 186 Fort, Charles, 372 Fortner, Yonah, 374 Foucault, Michel, 350, 360 Foundation Church of Scientology, 263 Foundation for Shamanic Studies, 333, 343–44n.7 “Four Noble Truths,” 203 Fourth Great Awakening, 82 France, 210, 264, 287–89, 369–370 Francis, Edward, 276, 277, 282, 283n.5, 283n.6 Francis of Assisi (saint), 273 Fraternitas Saturni, 405 fraud, 45, 184, 275. See also scams Freemasonry, 117, 212, 288, 291–92, 298, 322, 411 Free the Children of God (FREECOG), 3, 15 free will, 41, 45, 271, 408 Freewinds, 263 Free Zone, 268 Freud, Sigmund, 186, 258, 259 Frisbee, Lonnie, 84–87, 89, 91–92, 94, 97n.16 Fruit of Islam, 120 Fuller Theological Seminary, 88, 92 fundamentalist Buddhism, 213

450

Index

fundamentalist Christianity Book of Revelation and, 355 inductive experiential approach and, 97n.13 Neopaganism and, 326 New Age spiritualties and, 7–8, 302, 306–7, 309, 311 Satanism and, 420 Fund for Animals, 280 Gaia, 321 galdr, 334 Gallagher, Eugene V., x, 4, 67–78, 373 gambling, 123, 124 gand, 337, 344n.16 Gardell, Mattias, x, 9, 115, 383–395 Gardner, Gerald, 8, 315, 318, 321–22, 325, 327 Gardner, Richard, 224–25, 234–35nn.61–68 Garvey, Marcus, 116, 119 gas attacks, 195, 208, 211, 217–221, 224, 227, 233n.46 Gaudiya Math sampradaya, 146, 150, 153 Gaudiya Vaisnavism, 150–51, 153, 154–55 Gaup, Ailo, 334 Gautier, Francois, 164–65, 172 Gaven (Bendriss), 339 gedatsu, 203–4, 208, 214, 215 Geldof, Bob, 399 Geldof, Peaches, 399–400, 422n.1 gender Elohim and, 378 Five Percenters and, 124 Heaven’s Gate rules and, 353 KC activities, leadership, and, 107, 108 Koresh’s “New Light” vision and, 75 LaVey, Church of Satan, and, 410 Moorish Science Temple and, 118 Nation of Islam and, 120 Neopaganism on, 322–27, 343

Osho movement and, 187 Roden (Lois) on religious equality based on, 71 Western esotericism and, 326 Wicca and, 322 General Association of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, 69 Genesis, 369–370, 376 Genshi butten (Nakamura), 201 Genshi butten kogi (Asahara), 230–31n.19 Gentiles, 356–57, 358, 396n.1 Germany, 217 Ghulam Ahmad, Mirza, 126n.3 Gift of Intellect/Knowledge/Set, 412 Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid, 305, 306 Gilmore, Peter H., 406–8, 425n.17 Ginsberg, Allen, 147 globalization, 213, 232n.33 Global Peace Foundation, 49, 50n.9 glossolalia, 82, 83. See also speaking in tongues gnosis, 290, 391, 403, 412, 415 Gnostics, 133, 272, 290, 306–7, 358–59 God apocalyptic dualism on, 293 Ascended Masters and, 272 Ashlag on, 104–5 Berg (Philip) on, 103, 105 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 271–72 covenant with Jews, 358 cultivating the love of, 146 Dione on, 373 Ein sof of, 104 as Elohim, 371, 374, 377, 379n.2 extraterrestrials and, 370, 371 Falun Gong on, 246 in Gnosticism, 290 I AM self and, 271, 272 Jessup on, 372 Jones’ identification with, 55

Index 451 McVan on, 390–92 MSIA and, 135, 142 Neopaganism on, 316, 323–24 Raël and, 369–371 Raëlian religion and, 375 Rajneesh on, 186 Sant Mat on, 133, 135 Satan and, 39, 90 in Satanism, 408 in Soul Transcendence, 135 Three Blessings of, 39 Toronto Blessing and, 94 True Families and, 41 Unificationism on, 39–42 von Däniken on, 373 in Western esotericism, 290 Wotansvolk’s Lane on, 390 Zohar on, 104 God is Dead (Bruce), 305 Gods of the Blood, 391, 392 gold, 182, 275, 277 golden calf incident, 357 Golden Dawn, 320, 322, 411 Golden Era Productions, 264 Golden Way Foundation, 289 Goldman, Marion S., x, 6, 176–192 gopi, 146, 151 Goswami, S. d., 145–47 gothi, 393 “gothic” style, 418 Goto Ben, 201, 210 Governing Body Commission (GBC), 150–53 Granholm, Kennet, 413, 421 Grant, Kenneth, 403 gravity, 247 Great Awakenings, 82–83, 95n.2, 95n.3 Great Britain Dianetic clubs in, 259 England. See England ISKCON in, 148 Moon banned from, 44–45

Peoples Temple deaths and, 63 Scotland, 291 Temple of Set in, 411 Unification Church’s libel action in, 46 urbanization in, 321 Great Depression, 116 “Great Disappointment,” 70 Greater Magic, 408, 411, 412, 426n.28 Great Goddess, 318, 321 Great Tribulation, 29, 357 Great White Brotherhood, 271 Great White Lodge of Sirius, 290 Greece, 283n.3, 321, 384 Gregorius, Fredrik, 422 Gross, Darwin, 134 grottos, 406, 407 Gruberger, Shraga Feival, 112n.7. See also Berg, Philip Grunschloss Andreas, 372, 376 Grusin, Richard, 336 Guardian, The, 48 Guardian’s Office (GO), 266–67 Guerra, Anthony, 41 Guide of the rainbow (Nakazawa), 201 Guinevere (queen), 273 Gulliksen, Kenn & Joanie, 91–92, 97n.15 guns. See weapons Gurdjieff, Georges, 180 Guru Ma, 274. See also Prophet, Elizabeth Clare Guru of Joy, The (Gautier), 172 Guttorm, Anneli, 340, 342 Guyana, 55–65 Guyana Broadcasting Corporation, 64 Haddon, Malcolm, x, 5, 144–155 Hadith, 119 Hagin, Kenneth E., 93 Hak Ja Han, 40–41, 50 Hale, Matt, 396n.1

452

Index

Hale-Bopp comet, 349, 355, 361 Haley’s comet, 211 Hall, John R., 295–97, 354 Häll, Mikael, 405 Halling, Kari, 340 Ham (biblical), 117 Hamilton, Vernon, 277 Hammer, Olav, 305, 423n.4 Hanegraaff, Wouter, 303, 305, 324, 328n.3, 423n.4 Hanson, Anthony T., 357 Hardacre, Helen, 224 Hardy, Patty A., 411 Hare Krishna movement, 2, 5, 144–155. See also International Society for Krishna Consciousness Harner, Michael, 331, 333, 334–35, 342 Harold (king), 308 Harrison, George, 147 Hasegawa Chemicals, 218 Hassan, Steven, 45, 47 Hassidism, 186 Haworth, Ian, 45 Hayakawa Kiyohide, 200, 228, 232–33n.44 Hayashi Ikuo, 221 healing, holistic, 306 healing, spiritual apostle Paul on Holy Spirit and, 82 in COG/Family, 28 decrees for, 272 by Heathens, 321 at KC facilities, 105–6 in MSIA, 136 in New Age spiritualties, 136, 308 at Peoples Temple, 55 in power evangelism, 88–90, 92, 96n.9 by shamans, 333, 338–39, 344n.20 Toronto Blessing and, 94 health, 105, 171, 242, 244–45, 248, 305–6, 308

hearths, 320 Hearts Center, The, 281–82 Heathens, 316, 320–21, 333–34, 344n.9, 383–395. See also individual groups Heaven’s Gate, 1–2, 8, 173n.4, 282, 286, 293–97, 299, 349–365 Hebrew letters. See sefirot Hedenborg-White, Manon, x, 8, 315–328 hedonism, 410 Heelas, Paul, 305, 401 Hell, 203, 206 Hellesøy, Kjersti, xi, 7, 257–269 Hercules, 272 heretics, 114, 151, 262, 356–57 Hermetica Fraternitas Templi Universali, 289 Hermeticism, 417 Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 320, 322, 411 hermits, 229n.5 Hevre, 103, 107, 108, 110–11 Hidden Dangers of the Rainboy, The (Cumbey), 307, 312n.6 Hidden Masters, 287, 299. See also Cosmic Masters Hiizure kuni, wazawai chikashi (Asahara), 211–12 Hill, Betty & Barney, 379n.5 Hilton, Michael, 364 “Hinayana” Buddhism, 203–5, 214, 231n.19 Hinduism Advaita Vedanta, 160, 414 AoL and, 164 Aum Shinrikyo and, 201–3, 214 Druids and, 320 Falun Gong and, 249 guru veneration in, 168 Heaven’s Gate and, 358 Rajneesh and, 180, 181 reincarnation in, 141 Sant Mat and, 133

Index 453 Satanism and, 403, 414, 419 on self, 141 Tantric, 403, 414, 419 TM and, 160 Wotansvolk and, 392 yugas, 146, 249 Hinkins, John-Roger, 131, 132, 134–38, 141 Hinn, Benny, 93, 96n.6 History of Magic, The (Levi), 417 Hitler, Adolf, 386, 387, 392, 395 HIV, 43. See also AIDS Hjarvard, Stig, 335–36 Hoag, Phillip, 277 hoben, 205–6 Hognestad, Helge, 307 Holiness movement, 95n.2 Hollenhorst, John, 277 Hollywood, 264 Holt, Cimminnee, 421, 422 Holy Grail, 292 Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of America, The (Ali), 116 holy laughter, 93, 97n.17 Holy Spirit, 71, 81–97, 140, 142, 272 Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, The, 38. See also Unification Church Holy Trinity Brompton, 93 homes, 88–89, 96n.8, 96n.10, 136, 325 homoiousia, 363 homoousia 363 homosexuality, 31, 61, 92, 247, 327, 351 Hopkins, Emma Curtis, 283n.2 Hopkins, Thomas J., 149 Hori Kosuke, 233n.52 Horned God, 318, 321, 356 horoscopes, 209 horticultural metaphors, 354, 358 Høst, Annette, 334

House of Acts commune, 84 “House of Miracles,” 86 Houteff, Florence, 69–71 Houteff, Victor, 68–71, 77, 79n.6 Houtman, Dick, 305 Howard, Michael, 44–45, 46 Howard-Browne, Rodney, 93, 97n.17 Howell, Vernon, 71–73. See also Koresh, David How the Millennium Comes Violently (Wessinger), 294 Hubbard, Harry & Ledora, 257 Hubbard, L. Ron, 7, 257–266, 268 Hubbard, Mary Sue, 266 Huffington, Arianna & Michael, 137 Huguenin, Thierry, 291 “Human Individual Metamorphosis,” 353 human potential movement, 179, 181, 182 Humes, Cynthia, 159–165, 168–69, 174n.15, 174n.16 Humphrey, Chuck “Rkkody,” 351 Hutton, Ronald, 321, 323–26 hydrogen bombs, 261 Hyperborea, 391 “I AM” Discourses, The (Ballard), 274 I AM movement, 271–76, 368 I am the Gate (Rajneesh), 181 I Believe in Miracles, 86, 96n.6 ibn Aharon, Y. n, 374 Ibn Kathir, Ismail, 120 Iceland, 320 Ickes, David, 63 Idaho, 278–79, 389 identity Àsatrú and, 9 Aum Shinrikyo and, 199 ISKCON’s sectarian, 154–55 of Moorish Science Temple members, 117

454 identity (continued) of Nation of Islam members, 117 in Osho movement, 179, 181 Satanism and, 421–22 in self-transformation, 192 Wotansvolk on racial, 391, 392 Identity Christian, 385 ideology, forms of, 297 idolatry, 357 Ikeda Akira, 226 Ikhnaton (pharaoh), 273 Illinois, 116, 117, 119, 124 illness, mental, 97n.12, 417 illness, physical, 28, 105, 338 Imbolc, 320, 325 “Immortals,” 286 Imperium (Yockey), 386 Inca Empire, 338, 341 India AoL and, 164–172 Aum Shinrikyo and, 196, 217, 225 COG/Family and, 15, 20 ISKCON and, 145–154, 155n.1 Jesus in, 272, 283n.3 Rajneesh and, 180–83, 190 Sant Mat and, 133 “Spiritual Regeneration Movement” and, 159 TM and, 159–161, 164–172, 173n.3 Indiana, 54, 394 Indianapolis, 54 individualism, 305, 332, 336, 402–4, 409–13, 418–420 inductive experiential approach, 90, 97n.13 industrialization, 321 “infiltration theory,” 307 inimitability, 168–69 initiatic societies, 288 Inner Circle, 270 inner light, 133 “innerphasings,” 136

Index Inside the Church of Satan (Warren), 425n.16 Insight Seminars, 135, 136 Instagram, 399–400 Integrity Day, 135 Intelligent Design, 375 Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 55, 112n.6, 266–67, 277 International Association of Scientologists (IAS), 264 International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, 85, 87 International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, 43 International Order of Chivalry Solar Tradition, 288–89 International Raëlian Movement. See Raëlian religion International Renewal Network, 94 International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), 5, 144–155, 155n.1, 169, 362. See also Hare Krishna movement Internet Church Universal and Triumphant and, 282 Falun Gong and, 247, 253 Kabbalah Centre and, 104 NRM communications via, 172 Osho movement and, 191 Peoples Temple and, 63 Satanism and, 406–7, 413–14, 416, 421, 424n.15, 426n.29 Scientology and, 261 interwar period, 42, 116, 117–19, 206 Introvigne, Massimo, 288, 291, 295 Iowa, 164 Iraq, 172 Isaiah, Book of, 70, 73 Ishii Hisako, 196 Ishii Tomoko, 196 ISKCON Reform Movement, 153

Index 455 Islam as acronym, 124 adherents to. See Muslims African Americans and, 117 Ahmadiyyas and North American, 126n.3 Hadith, 119 Mahdi, 119, 371, 379n.8 Malcolm X and, 121–22 Moorish Science Temple and, 116–18, 119 Nation of Islam and, 119–120 Neopaganism and, 323–24 Qur’an, 72, 116–120, 377 Raël and, 371, 379n.8 Satanic Reds and, 414 Satanism and, 402 Sira, 119 Tafsir, 119 Islands of History (Sahlins), 423n.7 Israel, 69–73, 76, 103, 104 “Israelites,” 107 Issa (saint), 283n.3 Italy, 209 Jacobs, John, 60 Jainism, 180 James, William, 185 Jantsang, Tani, 414 Japan Aum Shinrikyo in, 6, 195–234 COG/Family in, 15, 19 Hiroshima, 370 Korean occupation by, 42 Moorish Science Temple members and, 118–19 Japanese Religions (Kabanoff & Krylova), 225 Jayewardene, J. R., 230n.9 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 361 Jenkins, Philip, 81 Jessup, Morris K., 372

Jesus Antichrist and, 29 Applewhite on, 359–360 Asahara’s identification with, 230n.11 birth of, 359–360 children of, 40 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 271–72 in Circle Seven Koran, 116 COG/Family and, 14, 24, 26–29, 32–33 crucifixion of, 40 Elijah and, 357 ethnic and racial background of, 117 extraterrestrials and, 360, 370 Heaven’s Gate and, 359–360 horticultural metaphors of, 358 in India, 272, 283n.3 Jesus People on supernatural powers of, 96n.5 as “the Lamb,” 356 marriage of, 40 Moses and, 357 MSIA and, 134, 142 Muhammad and, 116 name legitimacy, 178 Raël and, 371 in Raëlian religion, 370 resurrection of, 359–360 return of. See Second Coming of Christ Sallmann’s depictions of, 84 Satan and, 29, 40 Sun Myung Moon and, 38 transfiguration of, 357 Unificationism on, 39 Wimber on supernatural powers of, 88 youth counterculture and, 83–84, 96n.5 Jesus Chapels, 91

456

Index

Jesus People movement, 3–4, 13, 81–84, 94, 96n.5 Jesus Revolution, 14 Jeweled Tablets of Set (Aquino), 412, 425n.25 Jezebel (queen), 357 John (apostle), 356 John, Gospel of, 70, 356, 358 John-Roger Foundation, 135 Johnson, Benton, 191 Johnson, Julian, 134, 138 Johnson, Sylvester, 116, 118 John the Divine (saint), 349, 356–57 Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Bach), 231n.25 Jones, Jim, 3, 54–61, 63–64, 296 Jones, Lynetta Putnam, 54 Jones, Marceline Baldwin, 54, 60 Jonestown, 55–65. See also Peoples Temple Jonestown Express, 56 Jonestown Report, The, 62 Jorunn (shaman), 339–340, 342 Jouret, Luc, 286–88, 295–96 Joyu Fumihiro, 200, 208 “J R Controversy, The” (Lane), 137 Judaism Antiochus and, 357 apocalypticism in, 356 Ashlag on rituals of, 105 Book of Revelation and, 355–57 Branch Davidians and, 70 Christensen on, 386 Christian reinterpretation of texts of, 364 conversion to, 107–8 Cyrus and, 73 Farrakhan’s criticism of, 123 Heaven’s Gate and, 358, 362 Jehovah’s Witnesses and, 361 Kabbalah and, 102–6, 109–10, 112n.5 Kabbalah Centre and, 4, 103–10

Klassen on, 395–96n.1 Neopaganism and, 323–24 Raël and, 371 “reader criticism” of scripture of, 364 Roman Empire and, 355 Satanic Reds and, 414 Satanism and, 402 two witness requirement in, 357 UPF and, 43 Wotansvolk’s leaders on, 389, 392 Zohar and, 102, 111 Judge, John, 63 Judge, William Quan, 271 Jung, Carl, 385, 386, 389, 391, 392 Justin Martyr, 95n.3 K-17, Cosmic Secret Service Agent, 272 Kabbalah, 102–6, 109, 112n.5, 292, 377, 414 Kabbalah Centre (KC), 4, 101–11, 112nn.2–7, 400 Kabir, 133 Kali Yuga, 289 Kalvig, Anne, xi, 8, 331–343 Kaplan, David, 226–27 Kariya Kiyoshi, 219 karma Asahara on, 203–4, 206, 212 in Buddhism, 6, 214, 248 in Church Universal and Triumphant, 271–72 definition of, 141 in Falun Gong, 6, 245–48, 252 marriage and, 273 metaphysical movements on, 141 Mystical Traveler consciousness and, 135 New Age spiritualties on, 304 reincarnation and, 141, 272 twin flames and, 273

Index 457 violet flame and, 272 Western metaphysical subculture on, 141 kashrut, 106 Katar, 139 Keats, John, 321 Keeper of the Flame, 270, 273 Kemp, Daren, 306 Keneset Yehezkel Seminary, 112n.7 Kennedy, John F., 122 Key to the Mysteries, The (Levi), 417 ki, 202 kidnapping by Aum Shinrikyo, 201, 219 of Church Universal and Triumphant members, 278–79 of COG/Family members, 21 by extraterrestrials, 248, 371, 379n.5 FREECOG on, 15 kindreds, 320, 393–95 King, George, 355, 369 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 115, 121–22 King, Randall Charles, 283n.5 Kingdom of Heaven, 29, 39–42, 50, 70, 360 Kings, First Book of, 357 Kiriyama Seiyu, 196, 229n.4 Kirpal Singh, 133 Kisala, Robert, 225–26 Kishites, 414 Klassen, Ben, 386, 390, 395–96n.1 Klemp, Harold, 134 Kofuku no kagaku, 200, 210–11, 230n.11 Koran, 72, 116–120, 377 Korea, 41–43, 61 Korean War, 42, 46 Koresh, David, 67–77, 296 Kosovo, 172 Kraft, Siv Ellen, xi, 7–8, 302–11 Krakovsky, Shlomo, 112n.4 Krishna, 144, 146

Krishna-Balarama temple, 150 Krishna Consciousness, 152. See also International Society for Krishna Consciousness Kuhlman, Kathryn, 93, 96n.6 Ku Klux Klan, 384, 385, 389 Kundalini, 202, 205 Kunimatsu Takaji, 217, 219 Lacan, Jacques, 350, 360 LaDuke Hot Spring, 279 Lady Gaga, 176–77, 179, 190 Lancelot (knight), 273 land-wights, 321 Lane, David, 389–390, 394 Lane, David Christopher, 137–38 Lane, Katja, 394–95 Lane, Mark, 63 Lanello (Ascended Master), 274, 275 Lanello Reserves, 275 Laos, 217 Lao Tze, 272 La Pyramide, 289 Larsson, Göran, xi, 5, 114–125 lasers, 212 Lassiter, Martin, 277 Last Judgment, 4, 70, 73 Latin America, 15, 18, 26, 316. See also individual countries Laurent, Ray, 425n.16 LaVey, Anton Szandor, 401, 405–10, 416–19, 422, 424–25n.16, 425n.18, 425n.23 LaVey, Zeena, 411, 424n.13. See also Schreck, Zeena LaVey “law bodies,” 246 Law for Regulating Groups, 220, 225, 233n.51 Law for Religious Corporations, 220, 225 Layton, Carolyn, 62–63 Layton, Debbie, 60

458

Index

Left-Hand Path magic, 403–4, 411, 414–16, 424n.9 Leland, Charles, 322 Le Livre qui dit la veriete (Raël), 370, 376 Leonidas, 395 lesbians, 31, 327 Les Centuries (Nostradamus), 210 Les Granges sur Salvan, 286 Lesser Magic, 408, 412, 418 Letters to the Devil, 425n.16 Letter to Gail (Twitchell), 138 Levey, Howard Stanton See LaVey, Anton Szandor Levi, Eliphas, 417 “Leviathan,” 417 levitation, 196, 215, 244 Lewis, David Christopher, 281–82 Lewis, H. Spencer, 291–92 Lewis, James R., xi, 1–9, 131–142, 165–66, 226, 268, 270, 295–96, 410, 420, 421 Lewis, Sarah M., xi, 3, 38–50, 165–66 Liber Falxifer (218N.A-A), 422 libertinism, 222 licenses, for Scientology Missions, 262, 263 Li Chang, 243 LIFE 102 (McWilliams), 137 LifeArt Academy, 337–38 “Life of Saint Issa,” 283n.3 Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS), 178 Lifton, Robert, 227 “the Light,” 105, 107 lightning, 276, 292, 418 Li Hongzhi, 241, 243–252 Lincoln, Bruce, 311 Lindquist, Galina, 333–34, 344n.9 Lindsay, John, 124 literature. See also specific titles Christian, 302, 306–7, 312n.6 contactee, 368

fantasy, 244, 264 Romantic, 319, 321, 405 science fiction, 8, 208, 214, 258, 264, 358–59 Litha, 325 “litnessing,” 15, 17 Little, Malcolm, 117, 121. See also el-Shabazz, el-Hajj Malik; X, Malcolm Living Room, The, 84 lobotomy, 264 Lobov, Oleg, 217 LoBreglio, John, 225 Lord of the Second Advent, 40 Lord of Yoga, 198, 203, 229n.5 Los Angeles Azusa Street revival in, 83 Bridge Publications in, 264 Frisbee’s missionary work in, 84 ISKCON in, 151 KC headquarters in, 104, 108 Peoples Temple in, 54 Scientology Organizations in, 263 TM in, 159 Los Angeles Daily Times, 83 Los Angeles Times, 92, 112n.6, 136, 275 Lost-Found Nation of Islam in America, 119. See also Nation of Islam Lost Teachings of Jesus, The (Prophet), 272 Lost Years of Jesus, The (Prophet), 272, 274 Lotus Sutra, 205 “Lotus Village,” 205, 217, 232n.39, 232n.42 Lovecraft, H. P., 415 Lucifer, 302, 359, 370, 422. See also Devil; Prince of Darkness; Satan Lughnasadh, 320, 325 Luhrmann, Tanya M., 83, 84, 87, 90, 96n.11, 97n.14

Index 459 Lutheran Church, 82, 308–9 Lynch, David, 171–72 Lyotard, Jean François, 350, 360 Mabon, 325 Maccoby, Hyam, 364 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 403 Madonna, 104 Madras, 159 Maeda Daisuke, 223 magic Alexandrian tradition on, 318 in Church of Satan, 408–10 evil and, 337, 417 Left-Hand Path of, 403–4, 411, 414–16, 424n.9 in Neopaganism, 318, 320–24 research on, 409–10 Right-Hand Path of, 403 Satanic Reds and, 414–15 Scott’s study of, 413 in Solar Temple, 292 Templar orders and sexual, 291 in Temple of Set, 411, 425n.27 Western esotericism and, 290 “Magic Circle” center, 342 Magicians, The (Scott), 413 Magic Magazine, 339, 340, 342 mahamantra, 146 Mahamudra Yoga, 205 Mahaposha, 218 Maharishi International University (MIU), 163–64 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 159–169, 171, 172, 173n.3, 174n.16 Mahatmas, 368 Mahayana Buddhism, 203–5, 211, 214, 231n.19 Mahayana magazine, 197, 203, 204, 207–10 Mahdi, 119, 371, 379n.8 Maitreya, 231n.28, 379n.8

Making of a Moonie, The (Barker), 46, 48, 350 mala, 179, 186 males, US military draft of, 118, 148 Malibu, 274–75 Mandell, Mitchell, 280 manga, 210, 223, 225, 228, 230n.14 manipulationist sect, 425n.24 mantras, 135, 146, 159, 229n.5, 242 Manx, 384 Mao Zedong, 242 Marceline, 57 Maria. See Zerby, Karen “Maria” Mark, Book of, 357 marketing of AoL, 165 by Berg (Philip), 103 by Falun Gong, 243 by Kabbalah Centre, 4, 106, 109 New Age spiritualties and, 305 by Osho movement, 191 of TM, 165 by US religious groups, 109 marriage, 30, 39–41, 75, 273 Marsh, Philip, 414 Marshall, Andrew, 226–27 Märtha Louise (princess), 308–10, 343 martial arts, 244 Martin, Walter, 137 Martinique, 289 Marx, Karl, 186 Mary, Mother of Jesus, 272 Maryland, 124 Masons. See Freemasonry Master of the Ancient Wisdom, 271 materialism Aum Shinrikyo and, 199, 228 Buddhism and, 213 Catholicism and, 187 Christianity and, 213 environment and, 387–88 Falun Gong on, 247

460

Index

materialism (continued) Japanese poetry on, 234n.63 Left-Hand Path magic and, 415 Li Hongzhi on qigong and, 244 Rajneesh’s teachings on, 183, 186–87, 189–191 Satanism and, 403, 408, 415–17 Mathews, Bob, 395 Mathews, Chris, 405 Matsumoto Chizuo, 195–96. See also Asahara Shoko Matter, Energy, Space, Time (MEST), 261 Matteson, Catherine, 74 Mayer, Jean-François, 295 McCartney, Paul, 171 McPhearson, Lisa, 267 McVan, Ron, 389–392 McVeigh, Timothy, 390 McWilliams, Peter, 137 Mecca, 119, 122, 123 media. See also specific news outlets ACM and, 44–45 “affectiveness” of, 336 AoL and, 170–73 Aum Shinrikyo and, 205, 216, 219, 224, 226–28, 230n.14, 233n.48 Branch Davidians and, 68, 78, 171, 173n.4, 282 Church Universal and Triumphant and, 282 coverage of NRMs by, 44–45, 161–62, 170–72, 173n.4, 174n.17 fair game approach to, 266 Falun Gong and, 250–51 flow of information in, 336 Heaven’s Gate and, 173n.4, 353, 359 KC and, 112n.2 Meyrowitz’s metaphors for religion and, 336 Neopaganism and, 325 neo-shamanism and, 335–36

New Age spiritualties and, 139, 170, 302–3, 305–11 Osho movement and, 177–78, 187 Peoples Temple and, 55–57, 59–60, 62, 64, 173n.4 qigong and, 243 Raëlian religion and, 378 religious institutions and, 336 research on NRM coverage by, 44 Sami religion and, 308 Satanism and, 402 Scientology and, 257, 266 Sheela and, 183–84 Singer on cults and, 46 Solar Temple and, 173n.4, 287, 289 spirituality and, 336 TM and, 161–63, 170–73 Unification Church and, 46–47 meditation AoL on, 164 astral trips during, 209, 368 by Aum Shinrikyo, 195, 200, 207, 209–12 Bendriss on, 339 by Druids, 320 Falun Gong exercises for karmatic, 6, 241, 244–48 at KC facilities, 4, 105, 107 metaphysical, 84 in neo-shamanism, 333 Nostradamus and, 210 in Osho movement, 177–79, 185, 186, 188–190 Raëlian religion on, 378 with Rajneesh, 180–81 samadhi in, 230n.17 in Sant Mat, 133 Sudarshan Kriya in, 165 in TM, 159–160 Wotansvolk on, 392 mediums, 8, 139, 331–342, 344n.12 Meldgaard, Helle, 358

Index 461 Melton, J. Gordon, 1, 173n.6, 368 membership mobilization, 78, 80n.27 Menlo Park, 134 Message to the Blackman of America (Muhammad), 120 Messiah, 39–40, 43, 50, 73, 364, 371 metamorphosis, ideology of, 297 metaphysical movements, 5, 84, 102, 134, 139–141, 303 Metatron (guide), 338 Methodist Church, 54 Metraux, Daniel, 234n.60 Metsubo no hi (Asahara), 210 Metzger, Tom, 386 Mexico, 19, 209 Meyrowitz, Joshua, 336 Michigan, 116, 119, 121, 394 microwave weapons, 212 Mikaelsson, Lisbeth, 305, 306 Mikhailova, Yulia, 225 mikkyo, 196 mikveh, 108 millennialism, 29, 68, 73–74, 231n.28, 293–97, 299, 303. See also apocalypticism Millennialism, Persecution, & Violence, 294–95 Miller, Christine, 57, 62 Miller, Donald, 85, 87, 95n.2, 96n.11 Miller, Timothy, 1 Miller, William, 70, 74 Mills, Alexander Rud, 385, 386 “Ministry of Reconciliation,” 23 Minnesota, 134 miracles, 95n.4, 96n.9 Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (Wallace), 335 Miscavige, David, 268 missionaries from Branch Davidians, 71, 73 from COG/Family, 14–18, 20–21, 24–27, 30–33

from COTC, 396n.1 demons cast out by, 88 of Jesus People movement, 84 New Age spiritualties and, 307 from Unification Church, 42 Missions (Scientology), 262–63, 268 Missouri, 394 mitzvot, 106–7 Miyai Rika, 223 modernism, 97n.12, 363 modernity, 8, 316, 324, 420 Mohammed (prophet). See Muhammad, Abu al-Qasim Mohammed, Fard, 119 Mo Letters, 15–17, 27 monistic form of thought, 293–94, 304 Montana, 273, 275–281 Moody, Edward, 409, 421 Moon, Hyun Jin, 49 Moon, Hyung Jin, 49 Moon, Kook Jin, 49 Moon, Sun Myung, 3, 38, 40–43, 45, 46, 48–50 Moore, Ann Elizabeth, 57, 62–63 Moore, Rebecca, xi, 3–4, 53–65 Moorish Science Temple, 5, 115–120, 124, 125 Mootoo, Leslie, 62 morality, 304 Mori Tatsuya, 224 Mormons, 134 Morovians, 95n.3 Morton, John, 131, 135 Moses (biblical), 178, 271, 357 Motoyama Hiroshi, 229n.3 Mount Abu meditation camps, 181 Movement for welcoming the Elohim, creators of humanity (MADECH), 370, 379n.4 Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA), 5, 131–32, 134–142 Mubashshir, Debra Washington, 118

462

Index

Muhammad, Abu al-Qasim (prophet), 72, 114–16, 118, 370, 379n.6 Muhammad, Elijah, 114, 119–121, 123–25 Muhammad, Fareed, 114 Muhammad, Warith Deen, 123 Muhammad Speaks newspaper, 120 Mull, Gregory, 275 Mullins, Mark, 225–26 Murai Hideo, 207–9, 219, 224, 228, 231n.25 Murakami Haruki, 227 murder Asahara on, 206–7 attempted, at Rajneeshpuram, 185, 279 by Aum Shinrikyo members, 195, 216–17, 219–222, 227, 228, 232n.37 Buddhism and, 231n.22 characteristics of groups committing mass, 296 China, Falun Gong, and, 252 Fard on power through, 119 ISKCON and, 152 in Japan, 224 by Peoples Temple members, 53, 57, 60, 62–64 by Solar Temple members, 7, 286–87, 289–290, 293–98 Murray, Margaret, 321, 322, 325 music “authentic” performance of, 363 in Berg’s services, 14 at Calvary Chapel, 85–86 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 273 by COG/Family members, 15, 19 Jesus People movement and, 4, 83 in Jonestown, 56 Li Hongzhi on, 247 in Osho movement, 185

proof-text for, 97n.18 Sámi joik, 340 Satanism and black metal, 417, 422 shamans use of, 333, 337, 339 in Solar Temple rituals, 292 of white power Neopagan groups, 389, 396n.1 Wimber’s worship with, 88, 90 Muslim Girls Training-General, 120 Muslims, 5, 43, 114–125, 126n.1, 126n.4, 133 Muslims in America (Curtis), 115 Mussolini, Benito, 387 musubi, 223 Myers, Jody, xii, 4, 101–11 Myrhaug, Eirik, 337 Mystical Traveler, 132, 135, 142 mysticism, 160–61, 374, 384, 411 myths, 371–72, 423n.7 Nada, Lady Master, 272 Nadramia, Peggy, 406, 407 Nad Yoga, 133 Nagarjuna, 419 Naglowska, Maria de, 405 Nakamura Hajime, 201 Nakazawa Shinichi, 201 Narayana Maharaja, Srila, 153–54, 155n.2 Narconon, 264 National Commission on Law Enforcement and Social Justice, 264 National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, 76 nationalism, 42, 163, 210, 212–13, 231n.27, 243, 387 nationality, 41 National Peoples’ Congress (NPC), 252 National Prison Kindred Alliance, 394 National Socialism, 385–89, 391, 392 National Syndicalists, 387

Index 463 Nation of Gods and Earths. See Five Percenters Nation of Islam, 5, 114–17, 119–125, 126n.1, 126n.4 “Nations of the World,” 107 Native Americans, 55, 320, 334, 338–341, 377 natural disasters, 105 Nature’s Eternal Religion (Klassen), 396n.1 Nazism, 385, 386, 406, 420 NBC News, 57 Near Death Experiences (NDE), 335, 351 Nefertiti (queen), 273 Nehassedy, Jean, 375 Nenriki (Kiriyama), 229n.4 neo-charismatics, 81 neo-gnostic dualism, 298 Neopaganism. See also individual denominations beliefs and practices of, 374 Christianity and, 323–24, 326, 384 environment and, 316, 319–320, 332, 335, 387–88 feminism and, 316, 319, 322, 326–27 Freemasonry and, 322 Gardell’s study of, 9, 383–395 Hedenborg-White’s study of, 8, 315–328 media and, 325 neo-shamanism and, 333–34, 344n.9 racist, 383–395 research on, 332–33 Satanism and, 401, 404 term use, 328n.2 neo-romanticism, 160, 163 neo-shamanism, 8, 320–21, 331–343, 343n.6, 344n.9 neo-Templarism, 288–291, 299 Nepal, 22 Nero (emperor), 355

Nettles, Bonnie, 8, 349, 351–54, 358–59, 361–63, 365 New Age Frauds Plastic Shamans (NAFPS), 345n.25 New Age spiritualties advertising, marketing, and, 305 apocalypticism and, 307 Aum Shinrikyo and, 201 beliefs and practices of, 374 Berg (Philip) and, 103, 106 business management and, 305, 306, 312n.5 “ceremonies” in, 139 Christianity and, 7–8, 302, 306–11 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 271 concepts of, 5, 7, 293–94, 304–5 conspiracy theories on, 307 definition of, 302–3 educational images used by, 132, 139–141 on evil, 336–37 health and, 305–6 Heaven’s Gate and, 352 “inadequacy approach” to, 7, 302, 304, 311 indigenous religions and, 308 “infiltration theory” on, 307 on karma, 304 Kraft’s study of, 7, 302–11 media and, 139, 170, 302–3, 305–11 metaphysical movements and, 139, 303 millennialism and, 303 MSIA and, 5, 132, 136, 139 in Norway, 307–10 on reincarnation, 304 research on, 303–5, 332 “revival of religion theory” on, 307 Satanism and, 307, 401, 423n.4 self in, 401 Solar Temple and, 288, 293–94, 299

464

Index

New Age spiritualties (continued) spiritual healing in, 136 terminology of, 139 Theosophy and, 139, 303 New Era Publications, 264 New Jersey, 117, 182, 283n.7 “New Light,” 75, 77–78 Newport, Kenneth, 69 new religious movements (NRMs) ACM on, 45, 47, 48 in antiquity, 310 appeal of, 42, 125 assumptions about, 47–48 authority, constructing and confirming, 117–18, 203 controversial, defining, 114 controversies, reasons for, 44, 77–78, 310–11, 378 criticism of, 275 vs. cults, 44 founders’ journeys, 258 generalizations about, 47 Indian-oriented, 159 Internet and, 172 in Korea, 42 leader’s death and survival of, 48–49, 169, 191 media coverage of, 44–45, 161–62, 170–72, 173n.4, 174n.17 organizational structure of, 288 patriotism and members of, 119 police and, 123 scriptures of, 364 self-transformation of, 192 studies of, 1–3, 46, 48, 81 New Thought School, 283n.2 Newton, Huey, 122 New West Magazine, 55 New York City (NYC), 123–24, 147, 217–18, 244, 251 New York State, 124 New York Times, 62, 161, 258

New Zealand, 15, 241, 396n.1 Next Christendom, The (Jenkins), 81 Nicaea, council of, 363 Nicene Creed, 363 Nicholls, Ross, 319 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 391, 403, 419 Nightline, 183–84 nihilism, 402 Niji no kaitei (Nakazawa), 201 “Nine Satanic Postulates, The,” 426n.30 Nine Satanic Sins, The, 408 Nine Satanic Statements, The, 408 Noah’s ark, 370 “nones,” 110 Nordheimer, Jon, 62 Nordlys, 340 Norman, Ernest L., 355 North America Ahmadiyyas and Islam in, 126n.3 Canada. See Canada COG/Family in, 13–15, 20 Davidians’ ministry in, 69 indigenous religions in, 316 KC centers in, 103–4 Mexico. See Mexico US. See United States North Carolina, 396n.1 Norway Christianity in, 308–10, 343n.2 New Age spiritualties in, 307–10 Satanists in, 418 shamanism in, 331, 333, 336–343, 343n.6, 345n.25 Trondheim Satanic conference, 420 Norwegian Missionary Society, 310 Norwegian Shamanist Congregation, 333, 340, 342, 343n.6, 345n.25 Nostradamus, 201, 210–14 Notovich, Nicolas, 283n.3 nuclear reactors, 247

Index 465 nuclear safety zones, 54 nuclear war, 54, 209, 211, 212, 276–78, 368 Numbers, Book of, 357 numerology, 124 Nunn Report, 226 Oakland, 122 occultism, 291, 322, 326, 416 occulture, 331, 341, 343n.2, 373, 374, 423n.3 Odinic Rite, 320 Odinism, 320, 383, 385–395 Odinist, The, 386 Odinist Fellowship, 385–88 Odinist Religion, Inc., 385 Oestre, 325 Ohio, 393–94 Okawa Ryuho, 230n.11 Oki Masahiro, 229n.3 Oklahoma City bombing, 390 Old Nick magazine, 425n.16 Operating Thetan (OT), 261–63 “Operation Freak Out,” 266 “Operation Snow White,” 266–67 opposition, ideology of, 297 Oprah Winfrey Show, The, 68 Order of Freemasons. See Freemasonry Order of the Bards, Ovates, and Druids, 319 Order of the Knights Templar, 291. See also neo-Templarism Order of the Nine Angles, 416 Order of the Trapezoid, 407 “Order of the Vairagi Masters,” 133 orders, 411 Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), 322, 399–401, 411, 422–23n.2 Ordre du Temple Solaire (OTS). See Solar Temple Oregon

Heaven’s Gate in, 353 Rajneeshpuram, 176, 183–85, 187–89, 191, 279, 282 Organization of Afro-American Unity, 122 Oriental Exclusion Act, 147 Orientalist critique, 148 Original Buddhist Scriptures (Nakamura), 201 Original Sin, 41 Oshodam ashram, 187 Osho International Foundation, 178, 190 Osho Meditation Resort, 176–79, 184, 185, 189–192 Osho movement, 6, 169, 173n.1, 176–79, 184, 185–192 Östling, Erik A. W., xii, 8–9, 368–379 Otaki Toshinari, 208 Other Side, The, 336–37 ousia, 363 Owen, Alex, 326 Pachacuti (emperor), 338 Pagan Dawn magazine, 318 paganism ancient, 333, 383 modern See Neopaganism Pakistan, 171 Palmer, Susan J., 2, 292, 370–71, 374, 375–76, 378 Pan, 321 panentheism, 316, 323 pantheism, 316, 323 Paradise, Matt, 409, 422 paramilitary organizations, 389–390 parampara, 149, 152–53 “parliament” of Five Percenters, 124 Partridge, Christopher H., 173n.6, 305, 343n.2, 374, 423n.3, 423n.4 Pasadena, 274 Path of the Masters, The (Johnson), 138

466

Index

Paul (apostle), 24, 28, 72, 82, 97n.17, 358 Peace Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy (PTS), 135, 136 Pearls of Wisdom (Prophet), 274, 275 Pennock, Robert T., 376 Pennsylvania, 116, 394 Pensacola/Brownsville revival, 93 Pentagonal Revisionism program, 408 pentagram, 417, 426n.34 Pentecost, 96n.7 Pentecostalism, 1, 28, 54, 81–83, 95n.2 People magazine, 136 Peoples Republic of China (PRC). See China Peoples Temple African Americans in, 54–55 Alternative Considerations website, xi, 60–61 apocalypticism in, 295, 297 audiotapes from, 57, 58, 60–64 Aum Shinrikyo and, 296 background of, 53–57 Bible and, 55, 377 Branch Davidians and, 68, 296 Church Universal and Triumphant and, 275, 282 COG/Family and, 17 conspiracy theories on, 63–64 Heaven’s Gate and, 8, 296, 350 ideology of, 297 Jones’ health and, 296 lessons from, 64–65 Lewis’ characteristics of, 296 media coverage of, 55–57, 59–60, 62, 64, 173n.4 millennialism in, 294, 295, 297 Moore’s study of, 3–4, 53–65 murder-suicide by members of, 53, 57, 60–64, 293–97 NRM studies and, 1 relationships in, 61

research on, 293–97 Solar Temple and, 286, 295–96, 299 survivors of, 57 violence in, 57–58 White Nights drills by, 56, 63 Perfect Salvation Initiation (PSI), 207 Persia, 283n.3 Peru, 338, 341 Peter (apostle), 28 Petersen, Jesper Aagaard, xii, 1–9, 399–422 Phaedo (Plato), 358 Philadelphia, 116 Philip IV (king), 291 Philippines, 71 physical abuse, 55, 57–58, 267–68 platform societies, 369, 379n.1 Plato, 358 Playboy, 378 poa, 206–7, 222 podcasts, 425n.25 poetry, 224–25, 234–35nn.62–68, 321 “polarity balancing,” 136 politics ACM on NRM members and, 45 Ashlag on souls and, 105 Aum Shinrikyo and, 198, 204–5, 217, 221, 228, 230n.12 Barker on NRM membership and, 48 COG/Family and, 14, 18 Falun Gong and, 250–52 Peoples Temple and, 55 Rajneesh on, 180, 181 Satanic Reds and, 414 Singer on cults and, 46 Solar Temple and, 299 Wicca and, 322 Polmakmoen guesthouse, 308 Poloma, Margaret, 93 polytheism, 316, 320, 383 Pool, Robert, 119. See also Muhammad, Elijah

Index 467 “Poor Boy Clubs,” 15 Post, John, 389, 393, 394 postmodernism, 350, 360 postmodernity, 8, 350, 360–62, 365 power evangelism, 88–90, 92, 96n.9 Power Evangelism (Springer & Wimber), 97n.12 “Power of the Spirits, The,” 337–39, 344n.17 Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, 144–154 Prana Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy, 135, 136 pre-clear (PC), 259, 262 predetermination, 246 pregnancy ministries, 23 Presbyterian School of Christian Education, 351 “present truth,” 72, 73, 79n.16 Preston, Ronald H., 357 Price, Richard, 182 Prince of Darkness, 411, 412. See also Devil; Lucifer; Satan prison ministries of COG/Family, 23 of COTC, 396n.1 of Five Percenters, 124 of Nation of Islam, 121 of Odinist Fellowship, 385, 388 of Wotansvolk, 389, 393–95 “progressive truth” theory, 377 “Project Celebrity,” 263 proof-text, 97n.18 “Prophecy of God on the Old Church and the New Church, A” (Berg), 14 Prophet, Elizabeth Clare, 7, 270–78, 280–81, 283n.5, 283n.6 Prophet, Erin, 278, 281 Prophet, Mark, 270–76 Prophet, Sean, 278 proselytizing, 4, 54, 70, 103, 109–10, 208, 218. See also witnessing

Prosperity Gospel, 187 prostitution, 18, 182 Protestantism. See also individual denominations charismata in, 82, 95n.3 Great Awakenings, 82–83, 95n.2, 95n.3 Jim Jones and, 54 King James Version of Bible and, 361 New Age spiritualties and, 307 Satanism and, 409–10 Scientology and, 262 Sun Myung Moon and, 38 Prozac, 264 Przybyszewski, Stanislaw, 405 “Psychedelic Romanticism,” 160–61 psychological abuse, 58, 267 Psychological Association, 265 psychological tactics ACM on NRM members use of, 45–46 brainwashing. See brainwashing of Church Universal and Triumphant, 280 Daily Mail on Unification Church’s, 46 of Peoples Temple, 56, 58–60 at Rajneeshpuram, 185 sacralisation as, 324 public relations, 106, 109, 162, 171, 172 Public Security Examination Commission, 220–21 Public Security Investigation Agency (Koan), 220–21, 224, 233n.52 Pye, Michael, 226 Pylons (ToS), 411 Pyramid of Cheops, 116 Pythagoras, 417 qigong, 241–45, 251 Quakers, 88, 96n.8 Québec, 7, 287, 289 Qur’an, 72, 116–120, 377

468 race Àsatrú and, 383–84 environment and, 387–88 Klassen on, 395–96n.1 Odinism and, 383, 385–391, 393–95 of Peoples Temple members, 54–55 segregation by, 387 Sukyo Mahikari on, 231n.27 Unificationism marriages and, 41 Wotansvolk on, 389–392 Racial Holy War (RaHoWa), 396n.1 Racial Loyalty, 396n.1 racism, 61, 115–16, 121, 125, 383–395, 395–96n.1 Radha (gopi), 146 Radhasoami movement, 5, 133, 135, 137, 138 Radha Soami Satsang, Beas, 133 radio, 85, 217–18 Raël, 370–71, 373–79, 379n.3, 379n.8 Raëlian religion, 8–9, 355, 369–371, 373–79 Ragnarök, 392, 393 Raja Yoga, 205 Rajneesh, Acharya, 180–81, 186–87 Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree, 6, 176–192, 229n.3, 279. See also Osho movement Rajneesh, Mohan Chandra, 180 Rajneeshpuram, 176, 183–85, 187–89, 191, 279, 282 Ramananda, 133 Ramatherio, Sri, 116 Ramsay, Michael, 291 Rancho Santa Fe, 354–55 Rand, Ayn, 403, 419 Randi, James, 252 Ranehag, Lena, 337–38 rape, 57 rationalism, 162, 361, 403–4, 416–18 rationality

Index Aum Shinrikyo and, 200 in Heaven’s Gate worldview, 361 Neopaganism and, 316, 327 Satanism and, 400, 401, 410 Solar Temple and, 290 Reactive Mind, 259 Reader, Ian, 221–22, 233n.55, 234n.56 Reagan, Ronald, 384 Redbeard, Ragnar, 419 Re-enchantment of Culture, The (Gilhus & Mikaelsson), 305 Re-enchantment of the West, The (Partridge), 305 refugee ministries, 23 regression, past-life, 338, 339 Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), 267–68 reincarnation Ascended Masters and, 271 Berg (Philip) on, 105 in Buddhism, 141 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 271–73 Dianetics auditing and, 260 Falun Gong on, 247 Great White Brotherhood and, 271 in Hinduism, 141 karma and, 141, 272 in KC teachings, 101, 105 metaphysical movements on, 139, 141 in MSIA, 135, 141 Mystical Traveler and, 135 New Age spiritualties on, 304 Temple of the Presence on, 281 Theosophy Society on, 271 TM on, 160 Tørum on, 338 twin flames and, 273 Western metaphysical subculture on, 139, 141 Reiterman, Tim, 60 religion

Index 469 ACM on, 45 Beckford on skepticism towards, 162 characteristics of, 311 “empirical,” 361 ethnicity and, 383–84 Falun Gong and, 241 Five Percenters on, 124–25 founders’ journeys, 258 gender equality in, 71 insignia for establishing new, 118 magic and, 323 medialization of, 336 Meyrowitz’s metaphors for media and, 336 “submerged norm of,” 304, 311 Religion and Social Crisis (Kisala & Mullins), 226 Religion in America (Beal), 115 religious institutions Aum Shinrikyo and, 197, 198, 228 Barker on positives/negatives of, 47 Berg (David) on, 23 Berg (Philip) on, 103–4 COG/Family and, 14, 30, 33 Frisbee on, 85 Japanese, Aum incident and, 225, 228 Jesus People movement and, 84 Kabbalah Centre and, 110 Madonna and, 104 media and, 336 Rajneesh on, 180 resource distribution in, 166–68 Satanism and, 401 Sheela on, 183 Smith (Chuck) on, 85 TM and, 163 Western esotericism and, 290 Religious Technology Center (RTC), 263 Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan (Reader), 233n.55

ren, 246 “Re-organization Nationalization Revolution” (RNR), 16–17, 30 Repp, Martin, xii, 6, 195–229, 233n.55 resource dependence theory, 166–170 resurrection, 71, 96n.9, 349, 357, 359–360 Revelation, Book of Berg (David) teachings and, 29 Branch Davidians and, 69, 72, 75, 76 Christianity and, 355–56, 359 dating of, 355–56 Davidians and, 69 on “End of Days,” 349 FBI on Branch Davidians’ interpretation of, 67–68 Heaven’s Gate and, 8, 352, 355, 357–363 Houteff on, 68 Jehovah’s Witnesses on, 361 Judaism and, 355–57 Koresh on, 69, 72, 75 literary criticism of, 356–57 Moses and Elijah as two witnesses, 357 numerology in, 357 postmodernity approach to, 360–62 Roman Empire and, 355–57 seals on scroll in, 72–74, 356 “revival of religion theory,” 307 Rhema Bible Church, 93 Rhodes, Odell, 62 Rice, Boyd, 424n.13 Richardson, James T., 44, 174n.13 Richter, Jonas, 372 Right-Hand Path magic, 403 Ring of Troth, 320 Rinker, Rick, 416 Rinpoche, Kalu, 197 Rinpoche, Khamtul, 198 Ritalin, 264

470

Index

Rochford, E. Burke, Jr., 153, 154, 169 Rocky Mountain Sportsmen’s Survival Club, 277 Roden, Ben, 70–71, 79n.9 Roden, George, 71 Roden, Lois, 71, 73, 79n.11 “Role of the Esoteric in Planetary Culture, The” (Spangler), 140 Roller, Edith, 59–60, 61 Roman Empire, 355–57, 384 Romans, Second Epistle to, 358 romanticism, 160, 163, 319–321, 323 Romantic literature, 319, 321, 405 Römer, Jürgen, 93, 96n.9 Ron’s Org, 268 Rosenberg, Alfred, 391 Rosicrucianism, 117, 289–291, 299, 322 Rothstein, Mikael, 376 Royal Teton Ranch, 273, 275–280, 283n.8 ruan qigong, 242 Ruhani Satasang, 133 runes, 334, 392, 394 Russell, Jeffrey B., 423n.6 Russia, 190, 200, 212, 217–18, 225, 232–33n.44, 334. See also Soviet Union Ryan, Leo J., 56–57, 63–64 Sahlins, Marshall, 402, 423n.7 Sahoda Tsuruji, 201, 229n.3 Saint Germain, Comte de, 271, 274, 276 Saint Hill Organizations, 263 Sakamoto Tsutsumi, 216–17, 224, 228, 232n.38, 233n.52 Saliba, John A., 307 Sallmann, Warner, 84 salt, 325 Salubrious Living (Klassen), 396n.1 samadhi, 202, 207–8, 230n.17 samgha, 196, 204 Samhain, 320, 325

Sámi, 308, 334, 336–37, 340, 342, 344n.16 sampradaya, 132 Samson (biblical), 97n.16 Samuel, Second Book of, 270 Sanders, Alex, 318 San Francisco, 53, 54–55, 83, 407 sanitization, 403, 424n.8 sannyasins, 177, 179, 181–192 Sant Mat, 5, 132–35 sarin, 233n.46 Sass, James D., 409, 425n.21 Satan, 28–30, 39–41, 88, 90, 370, 402–3, 414–16. See also Devil; Lucifer; Prince of Darkness “Satan code,” 402–3 Satanic Bible, The (LaVey), 405, 407–8, 410, 413, 417–19, 422, 425n.20 Satanic Panic, 325, 406, 424n.14 Satanic Reds, 407, 414–17, 426nn.30–31, 426n.35 Satanic Rituals, The (LaVey), 405, 408 Satanic Witch, The (La Vey), 408, 418 Satanis (Laurent), 425n.16 Satanism, 9, 307, 399–426 “Satanism: The Feared Religion” (Gilmore), 408 Satan Speaks! (LaVey), 409 satellite broadcast, 354 satori, 181, 203, 215 Saucer News, 374 Saudi Arabia, 119, 122, 123 Sawyer, Dana, 159–165, 174n.15 Saxons, 384 scams, 111 Scheitle, Christopher P., 166–69 Scheper, George L., 82, 95n.1 schisms in Church of Satan, 406–7 definition of, 165 factors relating to, 163, 166–170, 173n.8

Index 471 in Hindu guru movements, 165 in ISKCON, 153, 154 nationalism and, 163 NRM’s leader’s death and, 48 organizational structure and, 167, 169, 170 in Osho movement, 176 plagiarism and, 138 resource dependence theory on, 166–170 socioeconomics and, 163 in Temple of Set, 411 in TM, 6, 163–170, 174n.16 Wallis on, 48, 163, 168 Schliemann, Heinrich, 372 Schneider, Steve, 74 schools, 18, 20, 56, 264 Schreck, Nikolas, 424n.13 Schreck, Zeena LaVey, 411. See also LaVey, Zeena Schuyler, Philip, 295 science ancient astronaut theories on, 371–72, 375 AoL and, 172 Aum Shinrikyo and, 200, 207–8, 214–15 Buddhism and, 200 characteristics of, 208 definition of, 173n.5 Falun Gong and, 247–250 Neopaganism and, 316, 323 qigong and, 242–43 Raëlian religion and, 369–370, 375–76, 378 Satanism and, 403, 410, 419 TM and, 5, 162–64, 171, 172, 173n.5 Unification Church and, 43 Vorilhon on Bible and alien, 369–370 science fiction, 8, 208, 214, 258, 264, 358–59

Science of Being and the Art of Living, The (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi), 165 Science of Creative Intelligence, The, 162 Science of Happiness, 230n.11 Scientology, 7, 257, 260–69, 399–401 Scotland, 291 Scott, Gini Graham, 413 Scroll of Set, The, 425n.25 Scutari, Richard, 394–95 Seale, Bobby, 122 séances, 336–37, 344n.12 Sea Organization, 264, 267 Second Coming of Christ, 4, 24–25, 29, 33, 68, 70–74 Second Great Awakening, 83 Secret Doctrine, The (Blavatsky), 273, 358 Secret Life of a Satanist, The (Barton), 409 secularization, 419, 420 seekers Asahara on yoga and, 202 in Aum Shinrikyo, 198 in Heaven’s Gate, 350 MSIA and, 134 New Age spiritualties and, 305 NRM studies by, 162 Osho movement and, 177–180, 186, 190–92 Polmakmoen guesthouse and, 308 self-transformation of, 192 sefirot, 104, 107, 108–9, 417 seid, 334 seidr, 321 seimei handan, 196, 229n.8, 234n.56 Seinfeld, Jerry, 171 seishin kagaku, 208 Seishi o koeru (Asahara), 202, 230n.16 self-criticism sessions, 55, 58. See also catharsis sessions self-deification, 411–12 self-immolation, 251–52

472

Index

Sendy, Jean, 375 senryu, 224–25, 234–35nn.62–68 sensory deprivation chamber, 59–60 sensuality, 9, 378 Sentes, Bryan, 375–76 September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 64 Serrano, Miguel, 391, 392, 396n.3 Set (deity), 411, 412 Setians, 411–13 Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA), 4, 67–74, 77, 79n.16 “sex cult,” 422– 23n.2 sexism, 124 sexual abuse, 22, 58 sexual activity by Branch Davidians, 75, 77–78 in Church Universal and Triumphant, 274 in COG/Family, 14–20, 31–33 in Heaven’s Gate, 353, 354 of ISKCON members, 149, 152 by KC followers, 107 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 161 National Socialism on pure, 388 Neopaganism and, 327, 328n.4 in neo-Templarism, 291 in NRMs, 310 in Peoples Temple, 61 in Solar Temple, 292 Unificationism on, 39 sexual exploitation, 74, 75, 77, 136 sexuality Berg on, 17, 31 Crowley on, 315 in OTO, 422n.2 Raëlian religion on, 9, 378 Rajneesh on, 180, 181 sannyasins on, 183 Wicca and, 326–27 sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), 18–19, 32 Seymour, William, 83

Shabazz tribe, 119 shakai-jin, 223, 234n.58 Shakespeare, William, 272 Shake Up Two Thousand (S2K), 24 Shaku Soen, 231n.22 Shakyamuni, 197, 198, 203 Shaman in High Heels (Tørum), 331, 338 shamanism, 333–343, 343–44n.7. See also neo-shamanism shan, 246 Shangra La Mission, 281 Shankar, Sri Sri Ravi, 163–69, 171–72, 173n.10, 174n.16 Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad (Twitchell), 138 Shearer, Monroe, 281 Sheela, Ma Anand, 183–85, 192 SHEkinah magazine, 71 Shelley, Percy, 321, 405 “Shepherd’s Rod, The,” 69 Shia Muslims, 114–19, 125 Shimazono Susumu, 222, 234n.57 shinri, 197, 204 Shinri-to political party, 198 shinsen, 196–97, 202 Shintoism, 316 shintsuriki, 214 Shiva, 198, 202–4, 229n.5, 230n.11 Shree Rajneesh Ashram, 177, 181–83, 188, 192 shukke, 196, 205, 216, 222–23 shukyo hojin, 198, 204, 216–17, 220, 225, 232n.37 Sigil of Baphomet, 417, 426n.35 siksa, 149, 152 silver, 275 Silverman, Sheela, 183–85, 192 Simmons, J. L., 139 Simos, Miriam “Starhawk,” 322, 327 simram, 133 Singapore, 155n.1 Singer, Margaret, 45–46, 47

Index 473 “Sinister Current,” 416 Sira, 119 Sirdara Maharaja, 153 Skjoldli, Jane, xii, 4, 81–95 Sky People, The (Trench), 374 Slavs, 384 sleep deprivation, 42, 280 Smith, Archie, Jr., 61 Smith, Chuck, 85–87, 88, 90–91, 94 Smith, Clarence Edward, 123–24 Smith, Kay, 85 Smohalla, 377, 380n.14 smuggling, 182 “social drift,” 350 Social Gospel, 54 socialism, 297, 385, 387, 426n.31 social media Facebook, 191, 406, 413 Instagram, 399–400 NRM influence and, 191 Twicsy, 399, 422n.1 Twitter, 413 YouTube, 191 Solar Temple, 1, 7, 8, 173n.4, 282, 286–299 “Solar Temple ‘Transits,’ The” (Lewis), 295 solstices, 320, 323, 325, 392–93 sonic driving, 344n.7 Son of the Sun, 372 Sons of Liberty, 385 soul, 291–92 Soul Awareness Discourses, 136 Soul Transcendence, 135 soul travel, 333. See also astral trips sound current, 132–34 South Africa, 93, 396n.1 South America, 19, 22, 104, 316. See also individual countries South Carolina, 70 South Park, 261 Soviet Union

Asahara on democratization in, 211 former member countries of. See Eastern Europe Peoples Temple and, 59, 61, 63 spá, 334 Spain, 289, 387 Spangler, David, 140 Spare, Austin Osman, 403 speaking in tongues, 82, 87–89, 91, 95n.3, 335, 340. See also glossolalia Speak of the Devil (Bougas & Parfrey), 425n.16 Spengler, Oswald, 386 Spiral Dance, The (Simos), 322 spiritism, 310, 331–341, 343 spiritualism, 335, 368 spirituality AMORC and occultist, 291 Aum Shinrikyo members on, 201, 230n.15 Berg (Philip) on, 103 Crowley on, 315 materialism and, 186–87, 189–191 media and, 336 of Neopaganism, 319, 321, 326 Osho movement on, 183, 186–191 TM and, 162–63 Western esotericism and holistic, 290 women’s spirituality movement, 319, 322 spiritual privilege, 177–78, 190 “Spiritual Regeneration Movement,” 159 Spiritual Revolution, The (Woodhead & Heelas), 305, 312n.3 Spirit World apostle Paul on Holy Spirit and, 82 Applewhite & Nettles on possession by, 352 Asahara on suffering and, 203

474

Index

Spirit World (continued) channeling in meditation, 351 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 273, 276 COG/Family guidance from, 21, 24, 27–28 Falun Gong on, 248, 250 Harner on, 334–35 Heathens on, 320–21 Märtha Louise on, 310, 343 neo-shamanism and, 331–37, 339, 341, 343 Osho movement guidance from, 188 Ranehag on “travel” to, 337 Sri Lanka, 172, 198, 217, 225, 230n.9 Srila Prabhupada-Lilamrta (Goswami), 145–47 Srimad-Bhagavatam, 146 “star clusters,” 353 Stark, Rodney, 374 Star of David, 376 Starr, Ringo, 171 Starry Wisdom Sect, 414 “Star Trek,” 358 Star Wars, 105, 358 Steiner, Rudolf, 335 Steinman, Murray, 281 The Storm, 411 Story, Ronald, 374 street gang ministries, 23, 124 Strmiska, Michael F., 344n.9 Sudharshan Kriya (SKY), 164, 165, 167, 169 Sufism, 186 suicide by Aum Shinrikyo members, 220 characteristics of groups committing mass, 296 Falun Gong and, 247, 251–52 by Heaven’s Gate members, 2, 8, 293–97, 350, 351 NRM studies and, 1

by Peoples Temple members, 53, 56, 57, 60–64 by self-immolation, 251–52 by Solar Temple members, 7, 286–87, 289–290, 293–98 spiritism and, 310 White Man’s Bible on, 396n.1 Sukyo Mahikari, 200, 231n.27 sumbel, 321 Summit Lighthouse, 271, 274 Summit Lighthouse, The, 270 Summit Lighthouse Press, 274 Summit University, 273, 274 Sunday Mainichi, 205, 216 Sunni Muslims, 115–19, 122, 123, 125, 126n.1 Superior Order, 287 supernatural powers apocalypse and, 210 Aum Shinrikyo and, 196, 207–10, 214–15, 230n.15, 232n.34 Buddhism and, 214 Daoism and, 202, 214 Heaven’s Gate and, 361 hermits and, 229n.5 Japanese youth on, 196 Jesus People movement on Jesus,’ 96n.5 Li Hongzhi on, 244 Nenriki on, 229nn.4 in power evangelism, 96n.9 qigong and, 242–44 Raëlian religion and, 372–73, 375 Satanism and, 408 science and, 207–8 secularization and, 419 Wimber on Jesus,’ 88 yoga and, 214 Suppressive Persons (SPs), 267 supremacy, racial, 387 Supreme Initiation (Asahara), 209 Surat Shabd Yoga, 133

Index 475 survivalism, 275–78, 281, 295 Sutcliffe, Richard, 403–4 swastika, 376, 380n.13, 393 sweat lodge, 320 Sweden, 334, 405, 418, 420 Sweet Daddy Grace, 120 Swett, Mark, 79n.20 Switzerland, 7, 178, 286–89 Symeon (saint), 95n.3 Synarchy of the Temple, 292 syncretism, 202, 213–14, 316, 414 the System COG/Family and, 14, 15, 23, 30, 31, 33 definition of, 14 economic. See economic systems education See educational systems political. See politics religion See religious institutions Wotansvolk’s Lane on, 389–390 Tabari, Abu Ja‘far Muhammad, 120 Tabor, James, 74 Tafsir, 119 Taguchi Shuji, 216, 232n.37 Taiwan, 241 Talmud, 101, 102, 106 tanks, 277, 283n.7 Tantra tradition, 187 Tantric Buddhism, 205–6, 214, 217, 231n.19, 403, 414 Tantric Hinduism, 403, 414, 419 Taoism, 197, 241–43, 247, 249 tarot cards, 190 tattoos, 179 Tawhid, 114 taxes Aum Shinrikyo and Japanese, 198, 218 Church Universal and Triumphant and, 277–78 Kabbalah Centre and US, 112n.6 Peoples Temple and US, 55

Rajneesh and Indian, 182 of Rajneeshpuram’s neighbors, 183 Scientology and US, 260, 265–67 Taylor, David, 350, 351, 354 teenagers, 18–20, 23, 28, 32, 56. See also adolescents Teen Training Camps (TTC), 19 telepathy, 368, 369 Templars. See Order of the Knights Templar Temple (Jerusalem), 356–57 Temple of Set (ToS), 406, 410–13, 415–17, 425–26nn.25–28 Temple of Set, The (Aquino), 412 Temple of THEM, 416 Temple of the Presence, 281 Temple of Wotan (McVan), 390 Temple ov Blood, 416 temporary idology, 297 Tenskwatawa, 377, 380n.14 Teresa of Avila, 95n.3 Tesla, Nicola, 212 Testaments of the Solar Temple, 287, 289–290, 294 Teton Mountains, 276 Texas, 2, 4, 14, 67–71, 73–78, 394 thelema, 399–400, 404, 415–16 theosophy, 117, 139, 271–72, 303, 368, 374 Theosophy Movement, 271–72, 303, 351, 368, 405 Theravada, 231n.19 thetans, 260–61, 265, 267 theta universe, 261 Third Great Awakening, 83, 95n.2 Thomas (apostle), 360 Thór’s hammer (medallion), 394 Those Gods who Created Heaven and Earth (Sendy), 375 Three Blessings, 39 Tiger’s Fang, The (Twitchell), 138

476

Index

Time magazine, 96n.5, 248 tithe, 106 Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), 216–17, 219–220, 224, 233n.49 Tokyo University, 234n.57 Tøllefsen, Inga Bårdsen, xii, 5–6, 159–173 Tongil Foundation, 49 Tonight Show, The, 161 Torah, 102–6 Torah VaDaat seminary, 112n.7 Toronto Blessing, 92–94 Tørum, Gro-Helen, 8, 331, 336–341 “Total Overcomers Anonymous,” 354 Training Routines (TR), 262 transcendental consciousness, 160–61, 173n.3 Transcendental Meditation (TM), 5–6, 159–173, 173n.2, 173n.3 Transcendental Meditation Organization (TMO), 163 transgendered, 327 Travolta, John, 399 Trench, Brinsley Le Poer, 372, 374 TRF Supporters, 20–21 Trinh, Sylvaine, 295 True Families, 41, 50 True Parents, 39, 40–41, 50 truthfulness, 245, 246, 250 “Truth Party,” 198 Truzzi, Marcello, 409, 425n.17 Tungus culture, 334 Twicsy, 399, 422n.1 Twilight Zone magazine, 196 twin flames, 273 Twitchell, Gail, 134 Twitchell, Paul, 133–34, 137–38, 142n.1 Twitter, 413 Unarius, 355, 362 unconscious mind, 259, 386, 391 Undercroft, 425n.16

unidentified flying object (UFO). See also flying saucer Aetherius Society on, 355, 362 Armageddon and, 211 Asahara on, 211 Bible and, 355, 361–62 Falun Gong on, 247, 249 Farrakhan on, 123 with Hale-Bopp comet, 355 Heaven’s Gate on, 352, 355, 359–363 inhabitants of. See extraterrestrials Jesus’ ascension and, 360 Muhammad (Elijah) and, 123 New Age spiritualties and, 303 Raëlian religion and, 370–71 Unarius on, 355, 362 von Däniken on, 355, 362, 372, 373 Unification Church, 3, 38–43, 45–50, 362, 377 Union Theological Seminary, 351 United House of Prayers for All People, 120 United Kingdom Great Britain See Great Britain Satanists in, 418 Scientology Organizations in, 263 United Nations (UN), 163 United States (US). See also individual states Asahara on WWIII with, 212 COG/Family in, 14–15 Dianetic clubs in, 259 exorcisms in, 97n.12 Falun Gong in, 241, 252 Indian migration to, 147 marketing by religious groups in, 109 Rajneesh meditation centers in, 181 Solar Temple in, 289 Unificationism on, 42–43 United States Senate’s Nunn Report, 226, 228

Index 477 United States State Department, 267 United States Trademark and Appeal Board, 178 universalism, 27, 109, 308 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 116 Universal Peace Federation (UPF), 38, 43, 50, 50n.2. See also Unification Church University of Jabalpur, 180 University of Saint Thomas, Houston, 351 University of Santa Monica (USM), 136 Unknown Life of Jesus Christ (Notovich), 283n.3 Unto Thee I Grant (Ramatherio), 116 Upanishads, 186 uranium, 218 Urban, Hugh, 257–58 urbanization, 116, 119, 163, 319–321 Urban League, 124 USA Today, 354 Utah, 393–94 Utsi, Ester, 307–8 Vaisnava, 146 Vajrayana Buddhism, 205, 217, 222, 231n.19 Vajrayana Sacca magazine, 205, 209 Valhalla, 393 Valiente, Doreen, 322, 327 Vancouver Island, 385 van der Leeuw, Gerard, 363 van Driel, Barend, 44 van Luijk, Ruben, 421 Van Otterloo, Anneke, 305 Vedic tradition, 148, 160, 173n.3 Ved Vignan Maha Vidya Peeth, 165 vegetarianism, 133, 179 verbal abuse, 55, 58 “Victor Programs,” 20 videos

of Falun Gong, 243, 244 of Rajneesh, 177, 183, 186, 190 of Ryan in Jonestown, 57 of Wotansvolk, 394 on YouTube, 191 Vietnam War, 148 Vikings, 334, 393 Vineyard movement, 4, 81–82, 90–94 violet flame, invocation of, 272 Virginia, 274 völkisch philosophy, 384, 389, 392 volva, 334, 344n.12 von Bingen, Hildegard, 95n.3 von Däniken, Erich, 355, 362, 372, 373 von List, Guido, 391 Vorilhon, Claude, 8–9, 355, 369–370. See also Raël Vosper, Cyril, 258 Vrindaban, 151 Vrindavana, 146, 150–51 Waco, Mount Carmel Center near, 2, 4, 67–71, 73–78. See also Branch Davidians Waco Tribune Herald, 68 Wagner, C. Peter, 88, 90 Waldensians, 95n.3 Wallace, Alfred Russell, 335 Wallis, Roy, 48, 163, 168, 332, 333, 343n.5, 344n.9 Walliss, John, 295, 297 Walpurgisnacht, 405 Wang Zhiwen, 243 warfare, spiritual, 88, 90, 95n.4, 311 Warmind, Morten, 310 Warner, James K., 385 Washington, DC, 274 Washington State, 277 Watanabe Manabu, 225 water, 107, 325 Watering the Roots (Humes & Sawyer), 160, 174n.15

478

Index

Way of the Shaman, The (Harner), 333 “Way to Happiness, The,” 264 Way to Happiness Foundation International, The, 264 weapons at Branch Davidians Mount Carmel Center, 71, 76–77 of Church Universal and Triumphant members, 277–78, 280 at Peoples Temple, 57, 63 of Solar Temple members, 289 Wotansvolk’s Lane on paramilitary use of, 390 Webb, Don, 412 Weber, Max, 82, 87, 409, 410 Wessinger, Catherine, 293–97, 358 Western esotericism beliefs and practices of, 374 Church of Satan and, 410, 419 definition of, 290, 299n.2, 328n.3 Freemasonry and, 322 gender roles and, 326 God in, 290 holistic spirituality and, 290 Left-Hand Path magic in, 424n.9 magic and, 290 Neopaganism and, 322 psychology and, 324 religious institutions and, 290 research on, 1 Satanic Reds and, 416 Satanism and, 401, 404, 410, 417, 423n.4, 424n.9 Solar Temple and, 290 Temple of Set and, 411 on universe, 290 violence and, 299 Westernization, 213 White, Ellen G., 73–74 White Berets, 396n.1 White Deer Medicine Woman, 338 White Man’s Bible (Klassen), 396n.1

White Nights, 56, 63 whites Ali (Noble) on Christianity and, 117 Àsatrú and, 9, 383–84 Christianity and, 117, 384 Fard on blacks and, 119 Five Percenters on, 124 King on, 121–22 Klassen on, 395– 96n.1 Malcolm X on, 121–22 Nation of Islam on, 119–121 in Peoples Temple, 54–55 products produced by, 120 racist Neopaganism for, 383–395 Smith (Clarence) on, 124 White Star Acception, 416 Whole Life Expo, 139 Wicca, 8, 315, 318–328, 333, 415, 417, 426n.34 Wiccan, The, 318 Wikipedia, 421 Wilber, Ken, 137 Wiligut, Karl Maria, 391 Wilkins, Margaret Z., 94 Wilson, Bryan, 425n.24 Wimber, Carol, 88–90 Wimber, John, 88–94, 96n.8, 96n.9 Wings of Deliverance, 54 Wisconsin, 393–94 wisdom, spiritual, 140, 215, 321 witchcraft ancient, 321–22 clothing and style in, 418 cultural narratives of, 402 “Dianic,” 322 Hedenborg-White’s study of, 8, 315, 318–328 iconography of, 417, 426n.34 magic and, 403 neo-shamanism and, 333 research on, 409

Index 479 Satanism and, 402–3, 405, 408, 409, 415, 417–18, 422 “white light,” 403 Wicca. See Wicca Witchcraft Today (Gardner), 322, 327 With a Great Master in India (Johnson), 138 witnessing, 14–18, 25–27, 95n.4. See also proselytizing Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 173n.6, 364 women’s spirituality movement, 319, 322 Woodhead, Linda, 7, 302, 304, 305, 311 Word-of Faith movement, 93 World Church of the Creator, 396n.1 World Council of Churches, 94 World Creativity Center, 396n.1 World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE), 264–65 World Services, 19–20, 23. See also The Family World Teach Movement, 164, 174n.16 World War I (WWI) Japanese occupation of Korea in, 42 time period after. See interwar period World War II (WWII) Christensen in, 385 Hubbard and, 258 Japan’s defeat during, 232n.33 Korea in, 42 Moorish Science Temple members and, 118–19 psychological tactics against prisoners during, 46 Third Reich mythology in, 320 time period before. See interwar period World War III (WWIII), 209, 211–13 World Wide Web on AoL, 171 applications, 177 Bendriss’ site, 339, 341

on Church of Satan, 409, 425n.16, 425n.22 Ebeltoft’s site, 342, 345n.26 on Falun Gong, 243 global spiritual marketplace on, 178, 190 Guttorm’s site, 342, 345n.26 on Heaven’s Gate, 351 on Jonestown and Peoples Temple, xi, 60–61 on Kabbalah Centre, 106, 109 LifeArt Academy on, 338 NAFPS on, 345n.25 on Nation of Islam, 114, 126n.4 on Osho movement, 190, 191 on Raëlian religion, 375 Satanic Reds on, 414 on Satanism, 406, 413–14, 416, 421 on Temple of Set, 425n.25 on TM, 171, 174n.23 Wotanism, 383, 389–395 Wotansvolk, 389–394 Wovoka, 377, 380n.14 Wulf, Elizabeth Clare, 274, 283n.5. See also Prophet, Elizabeth Clare Wyoming, 353, 362 X, Clarence, 123–24 X, Malcolm, 115, 117, 121–24 Xeper, 411–12, 415–16 xiaoye, 246 XinXing, 246 Yacub (mythical), 121 Yahweh, 371, 377 Yakuza, 219–220, 228 Yamai Norio, 235n.69 Yellowstone Park, 275, 276, 279, 280 Yggdrasil, 392 ying qigong, 242 Yockey, Francis Parker, 386 Yoda, 131–32

480 yoga Agama Sutras and, 203 Agon-shu and, 196, 201 in AoL, 164 astral trips during, 214 Aum Shinrikyo and, 195–97, 201–3, 207–8, 214, 229n.3 Church Universal and Triumphant on, 271 Daoism and, 202 levitation during, 196 Motoyama and, 229n.3 Murai on “Big bang theory” and, 207–8 Nad, 133 Oki and, 229n.3 Rajneesh on, 186 Sahoda’s books on, 201, 229n.3 in Sant Mat, 133 Shiva and, 203 “supernatural powers” in, 214 Surat Shabd, 133 Yoga Sutra, 201, 230n.17 Yomiuri Shinbun, 212 York, Michael, 316 Young, Richard, 222

Index Young Earth Creationism (YEC), 376 Young Oon Kim, 39 YouTube, 191 Yrteberg, Elizabeth Clare, 274, 283n.5. See also Prophet, Elizabeth Clare yuanshen, 246 Yu Changxi, 243 yugas, 146, 249 Yuki Hideo, 225 Yule, 325 Zechariah, Book of, 70 Zen Buddhism, 186, 187, 231n.22 Zenor, Richard, 134 Zerby, Karen “Maria,” 14, 16, 19–28, 30, 32 zhen, 246 Zhongnanhai, 251 Zhuan Falun (Li), 245, 250 Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG), 389 Zodiac, 376 Zohar, 102, 104, 107, 111 “zonal acarya system,” 152 “Zorba the Buddha,” 187 Zuckerberg, Mark, 176, 177